


my soul is a mosaic (paint me with your love)

by MarkedMage



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, rewrite of ATLA, screw canon ill do it myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkedMage/pseuds/MarkedMage
Summary: (Little things, insignificant things, and yet nothing that pertains to Katara seems to go unnoticed by him. It's like his mind is wired on her, and everything she does, everything she is, ignites the spark, and he is the flame.)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 117





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allthewaydown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewaydown/gifts).



> Hi everyone, this is my first attempt at a longer multi-chap zk fic- my timing is impeccable, the fact that i decided NOW of all times (grad school bby) is the perfect time to attempt this. I'm estimating this will be around 8-10 chapters, but with my track record, this will be a LOOOONG fic.
> 
> Rating is M, mainly because I have no idea where this fic is going to lead, so im making it M just to be safe. I'll update rating and tags as the fic goes on.
> 
> I had a really hard time with this chapter- I wasn't sure of the pacing or the topic or if it even made sense. If you read it and you liked it, please let me know in the comments- that way I know that this fic isn't as bad as I lowkey feel it is. Plus, your comments and love makes my day and really makes writing worth it. Thank you in advance for your support.
> 
> Also thank you to @allthewaydown for being a wonderful friend and the most supportive co-conspirator ever. This one's for you!

_Our words collided_  
_and in an instant your ocean_  
_had color because of_  
_my sky_

_R.M. Drake | Untitled_

_~0~_

They say soulspots are the manifestation of your heart, that they represent the very essence of who you are. That your entire being, who you are, what you’re to become, all narrows down to the little mark that decorates your skin,. That it is a reflection of your soul, and shows you who is meant to love you. A mark that is meant to represent you, and the person who will love you, in your entirety.

Zuko is born with two soulspots, however they're so faint he can't even distinguish what they may end up to be. It's not a surprise; some people go on for years not knowing who their soulmate is and what their soulspot turns into, waiting on that pivotal moment when their hearts and souls align. Zuko doesn't mind the wait, he is, after all, a child of five when he understands the importance of his marks.

There is a mark, small and slight, on his right forearm, running from his elbow to his wrist. It's pale, a sliver slightly lighter than the alabaster of his skin, hardly noticeable to the naked eye. He finds this one insignificant, but sometimes he can't help but stare at it late at night and wonder who is behind the mark.

The other soulspot is the one that holds his attention. This one is larger, darker in nature, but still pale since Zuko has yet to meet the one behind the mark. This one sits on his chest, heavy over his heart, like a stain spreading across his skin. He touches it first thing in the morning and right before he goes to sleep. Sometimes, he wonders why, because like his arm, it's insignificant and barely there, just a slight imprint on his skin for someone he doesn't even know yet.

His mother tells him that when he meets his soulmates, platonic and romantic, they'll take shape and color. It's not the shape that matches, she says, but the color. It's the color of your soulspots that match, that represents what love you have. Blue for trust, pink for commitment, red for true love.

He wonders what his soulspots will turn into, who the people behind the marks will be. Whether the mark on his arm is the mark of his love, or the mark of a friend. Whether the color of the stain across his chest will be a hue of colors, or remain pale until old age.

His father tells him that soulspots are a weakness. He eyes his son's marks like they're a disease, a stain on what could have been the perfect specimen. Zuko keeps his tunic tight around his throat, hiding his soulspot, but the one on his arm cannot be so easily concealed. It should bother Zuko, the fact that his father is so easily disgusted by his son's soulspots, especially when he himself bears one, sharp on his palm. It's like a gash right through his hand, but instead of torn flesh and gushing blood, his father's palm is stark white, like a bone bleached in the sun.

(Zuko is young, but he's an intelligent child, and he knows that his father only has one soulspot, the one on his palm. And he knows that his father's soulmate is not his mother, his mother who has a silver vine wrapping around her throat. He doesn't know why his parents have soulspots that don't match in color, but what he does know is that his mother's real soulmate is dead, and his father's white mark represents a hollow love.)

His parents make Zuko wonder if red, red for passion, red for love, even exists in this world. The only concept of red that he knows is the blood that’s painted on Fire Nation soldiers as they report to his father, while he hides behind scarlet curtains. He knows the red of the palace, knows it stands for the power and might of the Fire Nation. He looks at the marks on his arm and chest, the pale, colorless blobs, and tries to imagine how they would look, stained the color of ruby wine. He finds it hard to picture, this potent of a color painting his skin, representing something other than the war that runs in his family's veins.

His sister is born, all bright eyes and shaking limbs. She comes screaming into this world, like she's already willing to fight whatever crosses her path. It takes usually a year or so for marks to arrive, but then a year passes, and then two, and then three. Her skin remains a pearly white.

His beautiful sister, princess Azula of the Fire Nation, does not have a soulmate. She is unmarred, her soul a free creature to the wildness of the earth.

He hears his father tell his mother that Azula is the perfect child. _No distractions_ , he'd said. _Nothing to stop her from reaching her destiny._

(Later, Zuko will realize this is the moment where life as he knew it changed, for good. A fragile tranquility, a tentative stalemate between an angry father and a protective mother, beginning to crack. The moment where he first learns what his father's love looks like, in the admiration of his sister's unblemished skin. His father's love, directed at the second child, not the first.)

Zuko doesn't miss the disgusted looks his father sends his way, and he clutches his arm in fear. His mother wraps him in her arms, holds him close. _Soulmates don't make you weak_ , she tells him softly, in the solitude of the darkness. Late at night, huddled under the sheets in her echoing chambers, she soothes him in the ancient lullabies of the Fire Nation. They make you stronger. _Your father doesn't understand._

If soulmates make you stronger, then why did his father abandon his? And why did his mother marry a different person, instead of the one in the vines on her throat. Why were his parents matched, when they already had someone else they could call their own?

He finds out later, when he is eleven and Azula is five. He learns the story from his father one day at the training grounds, sweaty and bruised, beaten down sorely into the earth. "You're weak," his father says, and slams his fist into Zuko's shoulder. He doesn't cry out, doesn't whimper in pain, because he is the prince of the Fire Nation, and the prince of the Fire Nation does not show fear.

"You're weak," his father repeats, yanks on his phoenix tail and hauls him to his feet. He sneers, dragging his nails down the pale smear on Zuko's chest, eyes filled with disgust. "Weak just like your mother."

"Mother isn't weak!" Zuko breathes in response. "Mother loves you, and you're the strongest person in the world."

It should placate his father, but when he says the word _love_ , his father's eyes darken with anger, and Zuko is thrown to the ground.

"Love is for fools!" His father snaps. He yells for the servants, and a girl comes rushing forward, offering Ozai a golden robe. His father snatches the shirt and shoves the girl away, before storming over to Zuko and looming over his limp son. He bends down, eyes burning, and Zuko feels his heart stuttering in his chest, and resists the urge to touch his soulspot. "Your mother and I married because our bloodlines are strong," he informs Zuko. "Love has no place for power. And that's why you're weak, because you bear soulspots. Just like your mother, who yearned for her soulmate even after he died, waiting on him while I stole her away. The two of you are weak, putting so much into your soulspots, whereas your sister is strong. Perfect, unmarked. _What you should have been."_

It should sting, his father's obvious love for Azula and his blatant disgust for his firstborn. But Zuko just thinks about his mother waiting for a boy who should have been hers, and that hurts more. That his father would steal a girl away from the one she's meant to be with, just to sate his own political needs.

And he can't help but think about the one on the other side of his father's soulspot, the person behind the white slash on his father's palm. He remembers his mother's lessons on flower symbolism. White, he recalls, for an empty love.

"Your sister was born lucky," his father says, and grabs Zuko's phoenix tail, hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. He clenches his teeth, forces down the pain and the fear, and stares his father in the eyes.

(His father's eyes are a bright, startling gold, like the flinty shine of the sun right before it blinds you. Azula has those eyes, that same spiteful look, even at such a young age. Zuko has looked in the mirror, has prayed for those eyes to stare back, to give him some semblance of the father he so desperately seeks to praise, to be the man his father wants him to be. But Zuko has sunflowers in his eyes, soft burnished gold, rather than the harsh, biting rays of the sun's corona.)

"You were lucky to be born," his father says, and presses a hand to his son's chest. Zuko grits his teeth as his father releases his heat, and feels the embers of his father's inner flame singeing his skin. It's not enough to burn, but the message is clear. His soulspots mark him as his father's disgrace, as if the pale blotch that bleeds across Zuko's chest is a personal offense, a stain across the royal family itself.

He doesn’t cry out in pain, doesn’t give his father any more reason to believe that his son is weak. Even as the pain burns, and he feels the heat from his father’s hand scoring his skin, Zuko stares at his father with resolute eyes. He thinks of his mother, his beautiful mother who caresses the vine on her neck daily, silver for decay. Silver for death, silver for a lost love. Mother cannot be weak, he thinks. If love for someone who is lost to the void, persists even in the face of tragedy; if someone can force themselves to persevere through a loveless marriage, then it must be strength. How can soulspots be a weakness if they're the reason his mother's heart still beats?

But times like this, when his father burns him with disgust in those dark dark eyes, he can feel his resolve fade, doubt seeping into his heart where hope once lived. It's hard to believe in love, believe in his soulspots sometimes, when the man who is supposed to love him despises him in all his entirety. It is times like these, when his resolve wavers, and he thinks that perhaps this is all love is, nothing but anger and disappointment and a red burn scoring his skin.

His father leaves the arena, snorting in disgust. Zuko is left behind, a red stain spreading over the soulspot on his chest, but Zuko touches it reverently, sucks the heat away through his fingertips, and finds the soulspot on his arm.

 _Red_ , he muses, and tightens his grip on his wrist. _It can't be._

It's impossible, he decides, for red to represent true love. The red he knows matches the flames of fury burning in his father's eyes, the snarl of his wine-red lips as he looks at his firstborn in distaste. Red is for anger, for disgust, and it matches perfectly to the bloodlust boiling in his father's gaze.

His sister finds him a little later, still sprawled on the ground. She plops down next to him, a bored look on her face, and sends a curl of blue fire towards his hands, singeing his skin.

"Azula!" He yelps, rolling away. The pain crawls up his hands like vines, and he sticks his fingers into his mouth, eyes watering. Azula rolls her eyes, but withdraws her hand, and her blue flames recede.

(His mother’s lessons come to him again, as an aside. Each color, with their own positive and negative connotations. Blue for loyalty and trust, but also for coldness and cruelty. Azula may not be decorated with the marking of the soul, but she bears the color of who she is in the flames she wields. Blue for cold, blue for cruel, and blue for a depraved love.)

“What are you doing here, dummy?” Azula says, and she’s grinning that malicious grin of hers, the one she wears when she knows Zuko has spent time with their father. The one where she already knows how he once again disappointed their father with his weakness, in firebending, and bearing the marks of love on his skin like watercolor.

Zuko rolls away. “Leave me alone,” he grunts angrily, flicking at a pebble lying too close to his face. It brings his arm into focus, and he looks blearily at the stain spreading across his skin, like a watermark in the sunlight. A mark that could explode into so many different colors, but none of them, he thinks, could ever be red.

Azula sighs, and, in Zuko’s complete shock, she reaches out, hand gentle on his skin where it’s usually iron on flesh. “Zuko,” she says, and he rolls, meeting her dark gaze with his own. They’re different, he realizes, his more like their mother’s and hers a complete mirror image of their father’s. Gold bleeding into bronze.

“Zuko, you can’t let him know,” she says, in a voice less patronizing than it usually is. He searches her eyes, looking for the deceit that usually resides there, prepares himself for the onslaught of blue flames that usually accompanies it, but for once her gaze is clear and calm, devoid of emotion.

“Know what?” he asks, impertinent, because this is Azula, and Azula always lies. There’s a motive to her kindness, there has to.

Azula pinches his arm, right over his soulspot, and he yelps, rolling away and jumping to his feet, fixing her with a glare. “Dummy,” Azula says, rolling her eyes as Zuko rubs at the red splotch on his skin.

(Red for aggression. Red for violence. Red for his father, blue for his sister, but each meaning the same thing. Anger and cruelty, all directed at a firstborn prince who is worthless in his family’s eyes. Zuko may not bear soulspots for his father and Azula, but he knows enough that some marks aren’t always visible to the mind’s eye. He bears two soulmarks, one on his arm, and one over his heart, but what the world doesn’t know is that he carries two more engraved on his soul: one in the color blue, and the other, red.)

“You can’t let him know how much you care about the soulspots,” Azula says, and Zuko frowns. She looks pointedly at his arm, and he grunts, covering it with one hand, away from her prying eyes. “Showing him you care means showing him you’re weak. You can’t let Father believe you’re weak.”

“And you think I’m not?” He shoots back. It’s the wrong thing to say, he knows all too late, as he watches her eyes gleam in satisfaction, her lips curling into a cruel smile. A girl of five, one so young, who should be smiling and laughing and learning all the pure and beautiful things of life. And yet she is nothing more than this cruel being, old beyond her years, but she is a manifestation of all their father’s wicked beliefs and harsh training. A perfect weapon, a flawless body, unsullied by the grip of a soulmate.

“No, of course not,” she says primely, inspecting her nails. Then she scoffs, sends a gout of blue fire snarling towards his feet. He cries out, skipping away from the heat, and crashes to the ground, wincing in pain. In a fog, he hears his sister cackling, and his arm flares.

“I don’t think,” she says, and steps through the flames, bending over Zuko. “I know you’re weak. You and your precious love for soulmates and your soulspots. That’s what makes me better, Zu-Zu. Because I don’t have to worry about a soulspot. I don’t need anyone to make me whole. I already am.” She turns away, and Zuko watches his tiny, beautiful, terrifying sister douse the flames with a snap of her fingers. “Father knows how strong I am. Because I don’t need to rely on a soulspot, unlike you and mother. Soulspots make you weak. The quicker you separate yourself from them, the better. So you don’t end up like Mom.”

Azula leaves him alone with his thoughts, and he sits there, red marks now covering his soulspots. He tries not to look into it, but he wonders if maybe this is a sign, that those who love him are meant to hurt him. That perhaps this is the color he is meant to wear, red for aggression and anger. That maybe the love he has been blessed with comes in the form of disgust and disappointment.

But he wonders about his mother, and he wonders what shade of red she bore, when her vine was saturated in color. He wonders what it was like, to be married to someone when your heart was bound to another. Perhaps it was like this, he muses, as he gets to his feet and makes his way back to the palace. Maybe it was this hollow sort of love, the kind that grows for the people you share your life with, but still yearning for that emptiness in your heart to be filled.

(What does red for true love even look like? Does it look like this watered down burn that covers his soulspot? Does it shine like fresh blood splattered across a battlefield? Or is true love nothing more than a myth, the red of love nothing more than anger and disgust laid across skin like a hot iron?)

He brings it up later in his mother's garden, feeding the turtleducks. "Mother," he says, and she looks over to him, eyes soft, silver vine teasing the skin under her jaw. "What happened to your soulmate?"

He doesn't mean to bring up harsh memories, but he's determined to know the reason why his parents don't love each other, why his father favors blood over fate.

His mother sighs, and pats the ground next to her. He abandons his duty, dropping the bread into the pond, and slides over to his mother's side. She pulls him in close, draping an arm over his shoulder, and Zuko inhales the familiar scent of cloves and chamomile that clings to her robes. "Zuko," she says after a moment. "You've never asked before. Why now?"

He shrugs. "I'm eleven now, Mom," he says. He covers his words in a layer of pretend bravado, hiding behind his words, hoping she can't see the sadness hiding in his voice, echoes of his father's disgust curling in his mind. "I know stuff. Your soulmarks, they don't match."

His mother grows quiet, lips tightening into a thin line. Her hand comes up, touching at the silver leaves on her neck, and a dark storm obscures the gentle honey in her eyes. "Your father was a good man," she says, and Zuko doesn't miss the finality in her voice when she says was and not is. "But the problem with being born into the royal line is that you're born with the responsibility to lead the country, be strong for your people. Royals live for their country, not for yourself."

She sighs, fingers trembling at her throat. "I was born to a noble family, lived in a small city east of here when I first met my soulmate. But my family has a rich, ancient bloodline, linked to the fires of Agni himself. Even though I am not a firebender, our family has always sired many powerful benders. My marriage to your father was arranged long before I met Ikem, my soulmate."

Zuko frowns, and touches the soulspot on his chest, feeling the significance of it through the silk of his tunic. "But what happened to him?"

"He died," his mother says and the silver at her throat glimmers. "A few years after I married your father."

"Did it hurt?"

She looks at him, and he can see the sadness in her eyes. She bites her lips, smiles through the tears, and reaches out to cup his face. "More than I've ever been hurt in my entire life," she says. It should confuse him, as young as he is, but for some reason Zuko can comprehend his mother's pain.

(It's as tangible as the pain he experiences everyday. He and his mother are one in the same. Both have felt the pain of not having the love you want. Both of them know what it's like to be seen as a tool to the man who's supposed to love them, but maybe that's the price for his mother marrying someone other than a soulmate. A broken heart, and an estranged son.)

"Mom," he says, and she looks at him, a half smile on her face, eyes a million miles away. "Does love exist?"

She frowns. "Of course it exists," she says, and lays a hand on his arm. She pulls him close, presses a kiss to his forehead, and smiles. "I love you. Is that not real?"

He shrugs. He could tell her about what his father did to him today, what Azula did, and _how does that equate to love_ , but he disregards the thought almost instantly. It wouldn't do them any good; his father would take his anger out on him no matter what, and Azula would get her revenge in some way or another. Besides, even if he did tell his mother, she would suffer for it anyway. Try as hard as she might, his mother cannot hide the bruises on her wrists and face. He knows the shouts, knows the anger in his father's eyes, and knows what he's capable of. He won't let his mother suffer on his account, even if that means suffering through his father's hatred by himself.

"I just wonder if having a soulspot is worth it sometimes," he mutters. _If I didn't have these marks, maybe Father wouldn't hate me._

"It is," his mother tells him firmly. She cups his face, making him look deep into her fiery eyes that blaze like a warm flame, eyes that match her gentle soul. "Zuko, you need to listen to me. Your father doesn't understand the power of the soulspot. Neither does your sister. But your soulspots are what make you strong, make you who you are. You are a beautiful, brave boy, and the person who is meant to love you will only make those characteristics of yours that much stronger." She kisses his cheek, pulls him close, and presses a hand to the mark on his arm. "Whoever is meant to love you will know the strength of your heart. Soulspots are not your weakness, Zuko. Loving is not a weakness. I wish your father knew that."

She pulls away, cups his cheek, and exhales softly. "I'm so proud of you, Zuko," she murmurs. "I know that your father doesn't appreciate you, and your sister doesn't understand, but I love you with all my heart. You make my life whole. And that counts for something."

~0~

He meets Mai and Ty-Lee the year he turns thirteen. Ty-Lee is a bright girl of ten years, draped in pink and bouncing around his mother's garden as if she has wings. Mai is sullen, quiet, and she's twelve, lolling about by the tree, throwing knives at a passing butterfly. Each girl bears a soulspot; Ty-Lee has a mark behind her ear and one on her ankle, and Mai has a pale purple- _lavender_ \- circle on her palm.

He watches the dynamic between the two girls and his sister, and he narrows his eyes. Azula is very much a manipulator, he can see it in how she belittles their soulspots, how she pits the two of them together to vy for her attention. It's cruel and sad, how his seven year old sister can be so terrible at such a young age, but he reminds himself that the girl he sees is not his sister, but an extension of his father.

(What would she be like, he wonders, without their father's shadow? Would she be a gentle girl, a kind girl, a good sister? And what would he be, without the looming disgrace of his father's disgust and overwhelming shame? Is there even a possibility for a life where he can love his soulspots freely? Where red means something other than hatred?)

He's surprised when Mai introduces herself to him. "I like you!" Is what she blurts out, and he's startled, and shocked, watching her bow to him, red blush tainting her cheeks. No one, other than his mother really, has shown him such affection like this, and a part of him preens at the attention. But then he thinks about his soulspots, the one on his arm and the one on his chest, and he thinks about the person he's meant to love- who he _somehow_ , already loves- and that excitement melts into something far more somber.

And he can't help but think of the disgust in his father's eyes, and the revulsion in his sister's, if they knew what he was thinking. Because soulspots are a weakness in their eyes, and Zuko cannot be weak. He _can't_.

"Uhm," he says, and his gaze wanders down to where the lavender circle lays stark on her palm. A girl and a boy, each with their own soulmate. Zuko knows the story, knows all too well, of a white slash and a silver vine, and he doesn't want that. "I'm sorry-"

Mai has met her soulmate, and from what he can gather, it's a love that's meant to be luxurious, a love meant for someone that isn't him. But Mai covers her palm, averts her gaze and pouts her lip, and Zuko is shocked as she moves in closer.

"Soulspots are just a suggestion," Mai tells him. She flutters her eyes and steps in, way too close, and places her hand over his arm, right on top of his soulmark that has yet to bloom, and his breath hitches. "Besides, purple is for royalty. Maybe it's telling me that the one I'm meant to be with is one of noble blood. A prince of a nation."

Zuko doesn't miss the implication in her words.

He rips his arm away before Azula can see this unfold, before his sister has another weapon in her arsenal to torment him with. "I'm sorry, Mai," he says solemnly, and steps away. "I'm not your soulmate."

He goes to flee, and hears Mai shout his name as he runs. But he's always been a quick boy- perhaps years and years of dodging his sister's fires have honed the one skill his father won't scoff at- and he makes it out into the central pavilion, where he finds his mother and Uncle walking.

"Zuko," his uncle says, and he remembers that cousin Lu-Ten died barely a week ago. His uncle looks sad, eyes weary and mouth turned into a frown. It's unlike him; his uncle has always been a shining ray of happiness within the palace. Zuko wasn't close to Lu-Ten, not in the way he wanted, but his father kept him away from his cousin with a certain sort of depraved pleasure. _My son won't be affiliated with weaklings_ , Ozai had said, even as he called his own child a weakness. The last he'd seen of his proud cousin, he'd been off to Ba Sing Se with Uncle Iroh, and that was well over a year ago. Now, Zuko is one year older, one year sadder, and Lu-Ten is a lifeless corpse buried in the dirt outside of the Earth Kingdom.

(Lu-Ten will never meet his soulmate. Somewhere out there, there's a person whose soulspot has turned silver, who mourns for the loss of a love that was meant to be theirs. Somewhere out there, there's another Ursa, living a half life, and a love is lost.)

"Hello, Uncle Iroh," Zuko says, holding his hands out in a traditional Fire Nation bow. His mother smiles, but her smile is strained, eyes tired and worried, and Zuko should take note of this, should file this away in his mind for later, but his Uncle steps in and envelops him in a hug, holding him close. Zuko inhales the scent of jasmine and ginseng that always seems to cling to his Uncle's skin, and can feel the way his heart hammers through his clothes.

"Oh nephew," Uncle Iroh says, and his eyes are fond, if not sad, when he pulls away. He takes in Zuko's appearance, from his phoenix tail, to the soulspot on his arm, and his eyes narrow. "You've grown since I've last seen you."

Zuko puffs out his chest, tries to appear larger than he actually is. "I'm a warrior now," he tells Uncle, even with echoes of weakling circling in his thoughts, in both his father's and Azula's voices. "Soon I'll be able to join you in Ba Sing Se."

 _Let me prove myself_ , he thinks. _Let me show my father that I am not weak, that my soulspots don't make me weak. Let me be worth something in Father's eyes._

Uncle Iroh laughs, but his smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Not too soon," he says, and bends down. He touches Zuko's arm, not quite hitting his soulspot, but enough for Zuko to feel the warmth of his touch spreading across his skin like a wildfire. "I see you have a soulspot. That is a blessing, my nephew."

Zuko shrugs, bashful and looks away. "It's okay, I guess," he mumbles, and Uncle smiles.

"Soulspots are a beautiful thing, nephew," Uncle Iroh says, and he grips Zuko's shoulder, firm and solid, but there's a tremor in his hand. "Do you know why, my child?"

Zuko looks at his mother, but her smile directed at him is strained, her eyes still tense. She nods, encouragingly, and Zuko looks back to his eyes, meets his gaze with the same golden eyes, and frowns. "I don't know," is what he says, and Uncle Iroh just laughs.

"It means you have a life worth living," Uncle says, thumb brushing along the exposed skin of his collarbone. "It means there's something always worth fighting for, even if that thing isn't quite tangible yet. I want you to remember that, even if I am not here. That you have something worth living for."

"Iroh," his mother interjects, but his Uncle waves her off with a dismissive, yet not unkind, hand.

"He needs to understand," Uncle Iroh says. He looks at Zuko, meets him with that firm gaze. "Tell me you understand, Zuko. Tell me you won't forget."

"I won't," he quips, even if that little seed of doubt within him still grows. "I won't forget."

"Good," his Uncle says, and pats him once on the head before standing back up. There's a strange glint in his Uncle's eyes, something he can't quite place, and he notes how he can't stop staring at the light mark on Zuko's arm. Before he can say anything though, his Uncle smiles. "Never forget. Your soulmate will give you strength."

As his mother and Uncle walk away, Zuko watches. His Uncle is limping slightly, favoring his left calf, but there's a smile on his face as he chats with his mother. Ursa is still quiet, still tense, and she's cupping her throat where her vine lays against skin. It's a marvel how she still clings to it to this day, even after being married and losing her soulmate, how much the pull of a soulmark lingers even after the other half is gone. The power it holds in the bond, the strength it carries in a simple colorful mark on skin. He touches his own soulspot, the one on his arm that still tingles with heat, and hopes his are enough to give him the strength to continue forward, the same way his uncle and mother have.

It's the only thing in his life that remains stable in the years following, the steady, solid wisps of marks laid bare on his skin. As time bleeds by and days turn into months into years, he finds himself touching his marks more and more.

(He should find it strange that the prince of the Fire Nation takes more comfort in pieces of discoloration that dance across his skin, and finds more solace in his soulmarks than he does in life. Marks of such significance, symbols of love he has yet to find, intangible and yet the most substantial thing he has to cling to.)

His mother disappears by the time he is thirteen years old. He knows it's because of the conversation he overheard with Azula behind the curtains, the one Azula taunted him about when she snuck into his rooms. _Your soulspots make you weak_ , she'd said. _Dad's gonna kill you because of it._

He doesn't know how he goes to sleep that night with the realization that his father might just kill him. That his grandfather would wish that he dies, so his father knows the pain of losing a child like Uncle did.

A little part of him wonders if his father would even mourn for losing Zuko, whether he'd be sad or delighted that his only son would die because of what he said. He thinks that maybe not, that his father would revel in the fact that the only child he has would be a firebender with no soulmate, a girl who had no weaknesses.

But when he wakes to the news that his mother is gone and his grandfather mysteriously dead, It makes sense now. His mother's drop in vitality, his father's increasing tempers, his uncle's withdrawal from the palace. How his sister seems to grow in power by the second. So when he wakes up the morning of his mother's disappearance, just a few days after he overheard his grandfather tell his father to kill him, there's a letter and a ring sitting on his nightstand, _he knows._

He doesn't need to read the letter to know it's his mother's goodbye. He fingers the ring she left him, a simple band of cheap iron that had the characters _forever_ engraved on it, and hangs it on a chain around his neck.

He receives the summons later that day, the news that his father has been named Azulon's heir. That makes Zuko the crown prince, and Azula the crown princess, and he can see it in his father's eyes, the contempt that it's Zuko who's the heir, not Azula.

He will be the best crown prince the Fire Nation had ever seen. Because he has to, because if he shows any slight weakness, any hesitation, his father will stop at nothing to get rid of him. The same way he got rid of his mother, of his Uncle, of Firelord Azulon.

(He knows with all certainty that his father killed his grandfather. That his father killed his own to seize power away from his brother, because Firelord Ozai will stop at nothing to seek power, and won't let anything get in his way. Not a brother who lost a child, not a wife with a soulmate, or a son who carries two soulspots.)

The crown sits heavy on his head, and his soulspot burns. One on his arm, as if the person behind the mark is crying, and another over his heart, burning with new life. He doesn't stop to think about what it means, pushing it away and instead meeting his father's dark, burnished gaze.

"Hail, Firelord Ozai," he murmurs, and his father grins wickedly.

~0~

The day he earns his third soulspot comes on a bright summer day, a slight breeze stirring the air and not a cloud in sight. There's a crowd in the central square, unusual these days, because that's where the Agni Kai rituals are held.

(People receive two soulspots in their lives at the most, one for a platonic soulmate and one for a romantic love. His father has one, his mother has one. Azula doesn't have any, a rarity itself, but not impossible. Zuko has the good fortune to have two, and yet fate decrees he receives another.)

His father gives him his last soulspot, burns it's imprint into his face. It hurts, fire and smoke and ash filling his mind and robbing him of his thoughts, and he vaguely remembers his uncle diving for the arena before his vision fails.

When he wakes, he's on a Fire Nation vessel bound for the South Pole. There's a missive on his bedside table, bound with his father's seal, but he makes no move to read it. He remembers the disgust in his father's eyes and the spite in his sister's, and rolls over. There's pain in his face, his left cheek and eye bandaged, but what hurts more is the pain in his chest. His soulspot throbs, as if sensing the dark cloud obscuring his heart, and he holds a hand close, covering the mark.

 _You will learn respect_ , his father had told him, a boy of barely fourteen, for speaking out of turn. For standing up for the soldiers who otherwise have no voice- but that is weakness, he remembers. Showing mercy, showing compassion, showing love, is a weakness. Zuko failed, and thus was burned. _Suffering shall be your teacher._

For the first time in years, Zuko finally allows himself to cry.

Later, his uncle tells him what happened. How he got in between Zuko and his father, preventing the man who was supposed to love him from burning more than just his face. How Zuko and Iroh were banished, sent on a quest to find the Avatar. _Find me the Avatar,_ Ozai had written on the scroll. _Find me the Avatar and restore your honor, or die a worthless fool._

His uncle comes in close, eyes soft and gentle. "My boy," Uncle Iroh says. "What my brother did to you was cruel. You should not have been punished for standing up for the soldiers. What my brother did-" he shudders, and a tear leaks out of his eyes "-was unforgivable."

(Uncle Iroh's eyes are a soft gold, like the gold that licks at the edges of a flame. Gentle and buttery, so different from the angry sclera of his father's eyes. So different from Ozai, so similar to Zuko's.)

Zuko looks at his uncle, blinking away the tears that have threatened to pool over. His uncle smiles, soft, brilliant, and places a tender hand on Zuko's bare shoulder, brushes his fingers down his arm, and-

Zuko gasps, heat flooding through his arm. His uncle jerks, mouth dropping open in astonishment, and drops to his knees, clutching at his left calf. It's not pain that overwhelms them, no, not quite pain. Zuko doesn't know how to describe it, but there's an outstanding pressure taking over his breath and crushing his lungs, and he watches, slack jawed, as a blooming dahlia of baby pink blushes across his inner arm.

And just like that, he knows. His uncle is his platonic soulmate. And when his uncle lifts the leg of his trousers to expose three little stars blushing baby pink down his calf, he lets the tears fall. "Uncle," is what he says, and then Iroh is pulling him close, cupping his head and pressing his lips to Zuko's bandaged cheek.

(It's strange how he knows, how Zuko can just know his uncle is his platonic soulmate. Like his soul is a puzzle, and his uncle makes up all the pieces that surround his heart, builds the foundation that keeps him grounded. Not quite the one piece that fits perfectly in the place where his heart beats, but rather the parts that bind his soul into one sound being.)

"I've always known," his uncle says softly, and pulls away, cups Zuko's face and stares lovingly into his eyes. "It's been you."

"Uncle," Zuko whispers. He looks down at the dahlia on his arm, _long lasting commitment,_ his mother had told him. A love that's loyal, a bond that will never waver. "How?"

His uncle shakes his head. "How does the moon command the tides, how do the rivers know to run downstream? It's a question I do not know the answers to, nephew. It's an inmate knowledge I feel in my bones, my blood, my soul." He pulls aside the collar of his tunic, revealing his collarbones and part of his chest. There's a small dragon curled around his collarbone, a dragon that has faded to a dull silver.

Zuko remembers a time, long ago, when the dragon was a light shade of ruby, not quite red, and he remembers the woman by his Uncle's side who bore a diamond on her forehead in the exact same shade.

"The universe gave me Cha-Mi as my soulmate," Uncle says, and his eyes grow somber, caressing the gray dragon on his skin. "And I half expected Lu-Ten to be my platonic soulmate, but he was taken from me before I could see the mark. I had been dreading finding the other person I was meant to share my life with, dreading that they could never be the son I lost, but the moment I laid eyes on you, Zuko, I knew. The universe gave me Lu-Ten as a son, but it gave me you, as a part of my soul."

It warms his heart, and for a moment, Zuko can forget about the atrocities of a father and the disregard of a sister. He thinks about his mother, his beautiful, heartbroken mother, and a part of him is relieved. Because no matter what he's been through, he has his uncle, his lifemate, here with him to see the world through. It's better than what his mother had, seeped in a world of gray when she deserved a life saturated in color.

"Uncle," he says. He touches his face, the bandage rough against his fingers, and tries to ignore the panic that rises in his chest as the memories come flooding back, the scarlet of the flames licking his skin, the maniacal grin like a gash across his father's handsome face. "I don't- I can't-"

His uncle pulls him in for another hug, runs a soothing hand down the length of his back, and Zuko's body relaxes, already calming to the calming presence drenched in ginseng and jasmine. "Whatever happens, nephew," his uncle says, and pulls away, smiling at him with those same eyes Zuko bears. "I'm with you. I won't leave you, not ever."

He's true to his word. The years crawl by, first one, then two. The first year goes by quickly, and Zuko finds that it's easier for him to master his basic skills with his Uncle supervising him, rather than the draconic training his father suffered him through.

But there's only so much time can do, and as each year goes by, he loses hope that he can return home, that he can find a place in his father's heart and acceptance in his sister's. He finds himself touching his scar more often, the soulspot over his heart less, and wonders at the significance of it.

(Since when did he hold his father's respect over the love of a soulmate? That he would come to cherish the mark of hate on his face rather than the mark of a person meant solely for him, meant to love all aspects of his soul that others couldn't?)

The day comes that changes it all, the day when the white glow appears in the sky, right as they begin the journey into the South Pole. He'd spent months in the north, with no results, and had been dreading the trek north, but the sliver of light pointing south brings with it hope and happiness, even if a darkness seems to shroud Uncle like a foreboding cloud. "Finally," he tells Uncle, hoping to raise his spirits. "We can go home."

"Be careful," Uncle says, eyes severe and hands tucked into his pockets. "We don't know what we're up against."

Zuko scoffs. "He's over a hundred years old," Zuko says. "I think I can take him just fine."

His uncle doesn't say a word, and Zuko doesn't put much thought into it. They land at the South Pole, a measly little village that doesn't hold a candle to the might of the Fire Palace. He sees a boy painted in black and white, dodges his attacks, and storms the village, intent on finding the man with air in his blood-

(His uncle told him that meeting your soulmate- your romantic soulmate- was a feeling unlike any other. That your blood boiled with the heat of a thousand dragons, setting your blood on fire. That somehow, the world fell away and yet spiraled into place, like every fiber of your being tore itself apart and stitched itself anew, all in the span of a breath.)

There's a girl, and she's insignificant at first. A girl with her hood pulled up around her face, blue eyes framed with thick brown curls and a sheath of silver wool around her temples. She's merely an afterthought at first, especially at the appearance of a young boy draped in hues of the sunset, but as he fights with the child of air he finds he can't tear his attention away from her. It's the Avatar- this mere _child_ \- who's important, and yet this southern girl commands his attention.

The Avatar comes with him on his ship, and his last visual of the Southern Water Tribe is of the girl with the blue blue eyes, the girl of complete triviality and yet somehow the only thing in Zuko's mind. He watches her, eyes narrowed, and for some reason, his soulspot throbs.

The Avatar child is escorted down to the brig. Zuko accompanies him down to the lower levels, and can't help but notice the series of dots running up and down his right arm. They're silver, a surprising color on one so young, and the child catches Zuko's eye. "Monk Gyatso," the Avatar says, even if Zuko has no idea who that individual is. "He was my master before I disappeared from the Air Temple. I guess he’s dead now."

Zuko doesn't say a thing. The Avatar's master _is_ dead now, but for some reason, he doesn't have the heart to tell this child that his great grandfather eliminated the Airbender race decades ago, that the only thing left of the once proud people is nothing more than decaying temples and a whisper of culture lost to the grasps of time.

He thinks about the nameless Water Tribe girl when he's alone in his chambers later. He thinks about the deep blue of her eyes, like the dark waters surrounding the ice,, and wonders about the betrothal necklace around her throat. A girl of such inconsequence, and yet somehow he noticed these things about her. The way she had her hair braided back in the traditions of the unmarried girls of the tribes, and yet she bears a betrothal necklace on her slim throat. That her eyes burn with all the fires of Agni's realm, yet she's born a child of the moon. She's a girl who has no name, a girl who's family bears no royal lineage, and yet somehow, she's all Zuko can think about.

It's because of her taking up residence in his thoughts that he loses the Avatar. The boy of air disappears into a swirl of ice, an air bison dropping out of the sky, and Zuko feels his chest constrict even before she appears.

There's a weird tugging on his soulspot, an itch he can't subdue, and then he sees her, sitting atop the bison, rage flickering to life in the form of a frozen wave. Maybe it's because the sight of her seems to make time stop, or the way her deep blue eyes seem to freeze him in place, but whatever it is, Zuko doesn't even have the chance to react before his ship is overcome in a sea of ice. He feels her rage through the waves, feels the intensity of her anger pouring over him even as the waters freeze his skin, and there's a strange sense of sadness pooling in his veins as he watches her sail away with the Avatar in tow.

"You didn't do anything," Uncle says, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, melting the ice away. He feels the dahlia on his arm flare up in response, heat and love flooding through the mark until he's overcome in calm, and he sighs, embers sparking at his fingertips.

"I couldn't," he tells his uncle. Iroh frowns, and his eyes are open, all knowing, and there's a gentle smile on his face, as if he can't tell Zuko isn't saying everything. But he doesn't speak, doesn't say anything, and simply moves away, tending to the rest of Zuko's crew.

"I couldn't," Zuko whispers, looking up towards the sky, where the bison and the girl disappeared. He thinks of her blue blue eyes, the anger and the determination swimming in her ocean gaze, and touches a hand to his chest, scratching at where his soulspot twitches. _I wouldn't_.

~0~

He learns her name the next time he meets her. It's on the tip of his tongue from there on out, woven into the fibers of his consciousness, and he thinks, deep down, that even if he were to forget who he was, he'd never forget her.

The girl's name is Katara, and she is a waterbender of the South Pole. Katara of the South, a child of the moon, is a friend of the Avatar and therefore his enemy. It's his job to capture the boy, and in turn, it's his job to capture her, for rising against the might of the Fire Nation by siding with the enemy. An insignificant thorn in the side of the mighty Fire Nation, and it’s his job to handle it.

(Insignificant, and yet he spends every night whispering her name, touching his soulspot and _wondering_ just who she is. A trivial waterbender, and yet this girl of barely sixteen, with floppy limbs and chubby cheeks, with hair that is a shining ocean of chocolate and eyes that betray the flames of determination. A girl of insignificance, and yet she commands Zuko's thoughts.)

He carries her necklace, ties it tight around his wrist where he can see it at all times. Found by chance, by some miracle of fate, but Zuko cherishes it, whether it's because it's hers or because it'll lead him to the Avatar, he doesn't know. Sometimes he looks at it before he falls asleep, a welcome addition to his nightly ritual of touching his soul mark, and it falls in quickly, easily. He touches the pendant, thinks of her blue blue eyes, and then touches his soulspot, feeling heat flare between his fingers. It's the last thing he does at night, and the first thing he does in the morning.

"Why do you look at it?" Uncle asks him one night, under the stars by the campfire. They're on the trail of the Avatar- on the trail of Katara- and he's sitting in front of the dying embers, fingers tight around her necklace, when Iroh finds him. He doesn’t miss his uncle's shrewd gaze landing on the necklace tied around his wrist, the way his eyes seem to flicker in the light, but says nothing. He sits down heavily next to Zuko, and the dahlia on his arm flares up in response.

"I don't know," Zuko says, studying the bone white waves carved into the pendant. He runs his fingers over the smooth surface, tracing the carvings etched into it like scars, and frowns. "It just makes me feel... comfortable, somehow."

His uncle sighs. "Nephew," he says, and Zuko blinks, looking up at him. His uncle's eyes are soft, like they always have been, and usually the honey of his gaze is soothing. But ever since meeting Katara, his equilibrium has been knocked off its axis, and it's not the soothing gaze of his Uncle's soft heart that his soul calls for.

(There's an ocean in Zuko's heart now, pounding within the empty place where his second soulmate belongs. Wild and tainted blue, it beats at the edges of his soul, tugging him towards a shore he can't quite identify, a shape of a person he can't quite name.)

"Uncle," Zuko asks, and he looks down at the pendant, clenching it into his skin until it hurts. "Why were we given soulmates?"

It's quiet. Zuko counts his uncle's breaths, _one, two, three_ , before he finally speaks, and when he does, his tone is quiet, somber, and slow, like snowflakes dancing lazily to the ground.

"Only the universe knows the answer to that," Uncle tells him, and Zuko stares into the embers, picturing his father's snarl amidst the dying sparks. "But I like to think that we were given soulmates to give us a purpose, that there's someone out there we'd be willing to do anything for." He rests a hand on Zuko's arm, the dahlia blushing pink, and Zuko meets his uncle's gaze. "The universe gave me Cha-Mi and you because you give me the will to live. Losing Cha-Min was painful, but finding you? It gave me purpose once again."

Zuko grips Katara's pendant. "Whomever it is your heart belongs to, Zuko," Uncle continues, and his hand travels down the length of Zuko's arm, cupping his hand and tracing along the worn ribbon of her necklace. "I know you'd do just about anything for them. They're who we are, and when you meet them, when the time is right, you will know."

The next day, when he finds the Avatar, he finds Katara as well, and he lures her into a trap that sends her right into his arms. Her wrists, her thin, fragile wrists are in his hands, and one snap could break her, like a bird. He thinks this, but then he sees the bright fires burning in her eyes, and realizes that within this tiny vessel of a girl dwells the spirit of the moon, mother of oceans and the keeper of the snows. He finds he can't tear his gaze from hers, enraptured by the little flecks of silver scattered across her irises, and it's only when the pirate captains scream for their prize that he comes back to his senses. He sends the men on a chase for the Avatar, and pulls Katara away.

He barters the necklace with her, tying her to a tree. An offer of her necklace in place of the Avatar, and isn't surprised to hear her adamant refusal.

"Katara," he says, and doesn't miss the shudder that runs through her body when he whispers her name. "Please. You must understand. I need to regain my honor."

Her eyes flash, and his soulspot heats. "Leave us alone," she seethes, and he feels the air condense around them in response to her rage. "I won't help you, not for anything in the world!"

He steps in close, close enough for him to catch a whiff of the sea breeze tangled in her hair, the patch of lighter skin that dips under her collarbone where her tunic has shifted. The way her mouth is full, but there are cuts and bruises marring her pretty face, and the way her eyes flash with the fire of Agni.

(Little things, insignificant things, and yet nothing that pertains to Katara seems to go unnoticed by him. It's like his mind is wired on her, and everything she does, everything she is, ignites the spark, and he is the flame.)

"Katara," he says, and her breath catches. "Please understand. I need to bring the Avatar home." He holds out the necklace, and her eyes follow his hand. His arm is uncovered, and she spies the dahlia painted across his skin. Her mouth opens in a silent _oh_ , and when she turns her gaze back onto him, it's soft, gentle, like the pond in the turtleduck garden.

"Your soulmate?" She asks. "Is that why you need to go back?"

Zuko shakes his head. "No," he replies. "This is for my Uncle." His response is too quick, too adamant, and it shocks her as well as himself. He can't place why he felt the need to correct her, but what he does know is that he hasn't met his romantic soulmate, and she needs to know that too.

She blinks. "Oh," she says. "You met your platonic soulmate?" She turns her gaze, tugging at her bonds, and frowns. "I have one too, but I haven't met them yet."

He wonders who could be bonded to this wild spirit of the snows, who could possibly tame the winter storm that is Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. He thinks about her soulmates- her _romantic_ soulmate- and something within him rises, ugly and green, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to pull her close, claim her as his.

She turns her gaze back onto him, and his soulspot heats up. He tries to tamp down his envy, his possessiveness over this girl who cannot be his, but looking into her blue blue eyes, he can't help but wonder, what if?

Zuko's not sure why he feels so relaxed around this girl, this insignificant waterbender who barely knows enough to be proficient. But there's a softness to her he can't quite place, the way her fierce blue eyes seem to stir a quiet peace within him amidst the fires his father burned.

Zuko meets her gaze once more, loses himself to the swirling depths of her blue blue eyes that seem to pierce into his core. "Katara," he says once more, voice barely above a whisper, and he watches the ice in her ocean eyes waver and recede. "Please," he whispers. "I just want my honor back."

She frowns, and Zuko feels the air cool around their bodies, like the temperature drop he felt once his ship passed into colder seas. He doesn't pay attention to the change in the air, but he realizes later that he should, because Katara sighs, closes her eyes, and when she opens them, they're filled with sympathy, and also triumph.

"No one can take your honor away from you," she says. "No one, Zuko, other than yourself."

He doesn't get the chance to react, other than tuck that little tidbit away into the far recesses of his brain. Because Katara smirks, in that moment, and he hears a snap, her bonds freezing and breaking away. He drops to the ground as an arch of water, weak and floppy, but an attack nonetheless, sails towards his head. As he falls, he sees the air bison drop from the sky, and grits his teeth in anger.

Because of her, he has once again dropped his guard. Once again, Katara wriggled into his mind and clouded his senses, distracted him with all sorts of _maybes_ and _wants_ , and now he's about to lose her. Again.

Everything happens too fast. Uncle and the pirates are too far away for him to depend on, and he sees the Avatar and the Water Tribe boy jump off the animal and come to Katara's defense. Zuko reacts on instinct, throwing out a hand and slashing a barrier of fire between himself and his attackers, only to let out an oof of pain as Katara tackles him to the ground.

The world slows down, a fog descending over Zuko's mind as he watches Katara lean over him, eyes dark, lips whispering his name. He watches as her hand drops, glazed over with a sheet of ice, and feels the cold of it kiss his chest. His robe torn in the shuffle, provides no protection from her ice, but Zuko can't seem to pull away, and her hand slams down hard onto his skin.

When fire and ice collide, it bathes you in light and heat and steam and snow. A star is born in the moment of the collison, through the heat and the cold, a kaleidoscope of colors in the heartbeat where the burning tongues of flames meet the cool kiss of water.

Heat floods out from her hand, scorching at Zuko's skin, and he gasps, eyes growing wide. His soulspot twitches, burning like nothing he's ever felt before, and he can tell by the way Katara's mouth drops that she feels it too.

(Zuko's been burned before. By Azula's merciless hands, sending licks of flames at his feet from under the table. By his own father's hand, melting the skin on his face and setting his heart alight with the shame and heartbreak of only knowing a father's disgust. He's always associated burning with pain, firebending with fear and power, but in this moment with Katara? The burn is nothing short of _electrifying_.)

Katara yanks her hand away, scrambles off him, eyes glued to his chest. He sits up gingerly, wincing, and touches his exposed skin, eyes darting down to see the smooth expanse of pale flesh, and the wine red stain spreading across his stomach and over his heart. Red, pulsing red, heat still kicking at the edges of his consciousness, and he looks up, meeting Katara's shocked gaze.

"Katara," he croaks, and she blinks, hands trembling, and touches her shoulder in awe.

"Zuko," she breathes. "You're my-"

 _Soulmate_. It's what he knows she's going to say, what he wants her to say, but it's at this very moment his flames die out in a screaming vortex of wind. He has just enough time to roll to the side before the Avatar drops from above, gathering up Katara in his arms.

"Katara!" The boy cries, and the other boy, Sokka, stands protectively over them, waving his boomerang threateningly. Zuko stares warily, one hand clutching at his chest, and frowns. He could take them easily, sling Sokka's legs out from him in a breath and blast the Avatar away with his kata, but he sees Katara watching him, fear and surprise and something else he can't quite name, and can't bring himself to move.

 _Katara_ , he wants to whisper. _Katara, Katara, Katara._

Then the Avatar turns, eyes slitted like a viper, and Zuko has a moment to breathe, feeling the flames licking inside his throat, before the boy leashes a whirlwind of air. Zuko dives, the air rushing out of his lungs, and he has a heartbeat to find Katara’s blue blue eyes. “Katara,” he murmurs, or screams, or breathes, because who she is is every part of Zuko’s blood, everything that’s ever mattered to him. Her eyes widen, and he sees her whisper his name, before he hits the ground.

“Go!” the Avatar screams, and Zuko watches, dazed, as Sokka and Katara scramble onto the bison. She’s still watching him, even as she settles into the saddle, and her hand is clamped down onto her shoulder. Zuko groans, reaching out with a hand, reaching for her and not the Avatar, but the bison flaps its tail and takes off. Zuko grunts and rolls to his knees, forcing himself to move.

 _Katara_ , he tries to scream, but his throat is too dry and cracked, the air sucked from his lungs in the airbender’s attack. But maybe it’s the soulspot, or the intimacy of the moment they had shared, because Katara looks back to him as they take off, and he memorizes the look in her blue blue eyes. Blue like Azula’s fire, but this time, it doesn’t represent cruelty, or coldness. Blue represents an insignificant girl from the Southern Water Tribe, a waterbender from the south, a girl with ocean eyes and a mark on her body that will match his. Blue represents Katara, and blue now represents the sadness in her eyes. Whether it's learning that her soulmate is a disgraced prince of the Fire Nation, or sadness for being parted so soon from him, Zuko does not know.

War is something that runs through Zuko’s veins, thick in his blood. It’s what his father bred him for, training his son with a cruel hand. It’s what his sister thrives on, what his family has spent years doing. Red, for war and rage and anger. Blood and power, staples of Fire Nation strength, with no room for soulspots. Katara is Zuko's soulmate, but finding the Avatar is his destiny.

(He thinks of his mother and _your soulspots are a sign of strength, Zuko._ He thinks of his Uncle's matching pink and thinks about how he can capture the Avatar, restore his honor, and earn his father’s love. And somewhere, amidst all of that, maybe he can find Katara.)

He wonders if he can though. He thinks about his father, thinks about the hatred in his eyes when he saw his son’s soulmarks, the contempt in his sister’s. Is it possible for him to earn his father’s love and respect, and still cling to his soulmates?

But as he lies there, covered in dirt and sweat and a wine red stain smeared across his skin, he thinks there’s a chance. If he brings his father the Avatar, if he can redeem himself, then maybe he can have her too. Then maybe his father will realize that his son isn’t weak, that he can be a prince to be proud of, and that his soulspots won’t be a hindrance to the family line.

If he brings home the Avatar, that future becomes a possibility. A life reclaimed, honor restored, a chance for love. Something he’s always wanted, a love meant for him, not the half life his mother suffered through. He can have his father’s love and his soulmate, if he just finds the boy in the iceberg.

 _(No one can take your honor away from you_ , Katara had told him. But he touches the scar- a _soulscar_ \- on his face, he can’t quite bring himself to believe her. His honor was ripped away from him, and only he can get it back. And maybe then, she might be there, at the end of the journey, and they can have a chance.)

His uncle finds him a little while later. “Zuko!” Uncle says, running up to him. His uncle is running with a little limp, he notices, the leg that bears their soulmark lagging slightly behind as he runs. “Zuko, what happened?”

Zuko frowns, reaching for his Uncle’s hand and jumping to his feet. “I lost them,” he says. He looks to the sky, in the direction where Katara and the Avatar disappeared over the horizon, and touches a hand to his chest. Uncle follows the movement, and Zuko hears his intake of breath when he spies the red mark on his chest.

“Zuko!”

“I know,” he murmurs, and looks at the mark. Zuko has a small red stain bleeding out across his chest now, no bigger than his thumb. It's red, the bright, vibrant red you see in the center of a sunset, and when he touches it, it pulses, as if it has a life of its own.

(Maybe it does. Soulspots are creations of deeper magic, a bond that ties two souls together for all eternity. Maybe it lives and breathes as much as a human does, thriving off of the one it's connected to. A living, breathing organism, a bridge tying two souls, existing off the energy that spans heartbeats.)

It's strange though, this soulspot. Normally, when one meets their soulmate, the spot takes form and color. It's what happened when he and his uncle finally bonded, the dahlia forming on his arm and the stars on his Uncle's leg. A color for the love you share, a shape to commemorate it, and yet the mark on his chest remains formless. If he stares hard enough, he can see that only part of the mark is colored, the rest still a pale stain across his skin.

Uncle steps in close, eyes soft, and reaches for him, touching the barely there soulmark with tentative fingers. “Strange,” his uncle whispers. “It’s not fully formed yet.”

Zuko blinks, suddenly tired, weary. “What do you mean?” he mumbles, and his Uncle shakes his head.

“Let’s get back to the ship,” Uncle says. “I’ll explain everything there.”

Zuko doesn’t complain, and Uncle leads him back through the woods, through the village, until they reach the shore where their ship is docked. He’s tired, and sore, and his soulspot pulses, persistent and harsh, like the sand that grates at his toes inside his boots. Like an itch he can’t quite reach, a nagging thought in his mind he can’t quite place. The further he gets from her, and the further she gets from him, is like a thousand paper cuts against his skin, and he feels her absence like a knife in the gut.

“Usually, soulspots take color and form the minute you bond with your soulmate,” Uncle tells him, once they’re settled in Zuko’s quarters. His Uncle dips a rag into a bowl of steaming water, washing the grit and sweat off his body. The heat pools into his bones, easing his tense muscles, but does nothing to quell the boiling under his skin, the way his soulspot pulses, angry and insistent. “I’ve been wondering why yours still remains formless, even if you’ve found your soulmate, whoever they may be-”

“Katara,” Zuko says quietly, cutting Iroh off. He looks up, and his Uncle freezes, hand hesitating over the pulsing red thumbprint on Zuko’s skin. “Her name is Katara.”

His dahlia twitches, and Uncle takes a breath. “Katara,” Iroh says, and warmth floods out from his arm, his chest, and Uncle smiles, gentle and sweet, nothing like his father’s. “That’s a beautiful name. She’s the waterbender with the Avatar, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“The girl with the Avatar, and you, the prince of the Fire Nation,” Uncle muses, and Zuko blinks. "Yes, that could explain it."

"What do you mean, Uncle?" Zuko asks, and touches a hand to his chest. He fingers the little petal of red on his skin, right over his heart, and looks at the rest of the watermark that has yet to bloom with color.

Uncle takes his hand, resting his other right over the dahlia, which warms at his touch. "What I'm saying, Prince Zuko," he says, softly and carefully, so he cannot be misunderstood. "Is that the two of you come from different worlds, different sides. You may be soulmates, but I don't think the world is ready for you two just yet. Soulspots are supposed to form when the two peoples' hearts and minds are in sync. Think about it, nephew. The two of you are on opposing sides of a war. A budding love has no place in a bloodbath, not right now."

Zuko frowns. "How am I supposed to fight for my soulmate without my father's love and support?" He asks, and Uncle Iroh's eyes grow dark. "But how am I supposed to have a soulmate if I don't even have a home? Father always taught me that soulmates were a weakness, and for years, I wanted to believe it, Uncle. I can't deny that I want Katara, but I can't deny that I want my father's love too, Uncle. Why must I choose?"

His Uncle sighs, touching his dahlia, and moves away. There's something lingering in his eyes, some unveiled sadness he cannot place, and his uncle smiles ruefully. "Only you can answer that, my nephew," he murmurs. He cups Zuko's cheek, smiles softly, and Zuko watches his eyes cloud over, guarded and controlled.

"I don't know, Uncle," he murmurs. "I don't know."

"It'll come," Uncle says. "When the time comes, you'll know the right path to choose. You always have. For now, why don't you rest and sleep? We can restart the journey once you wake."

He has more questions for his Uncle, but even he can tell when Iroh is unwilling to talk. So he rolls over, pulling the covers over his soulspot, and Uncle bids him a quiet _good night_ , pulling the door shut closed.

Zuko flops onto his back, shifts the sheets, and props himself up against the pillows. In the flickering candlelight, Katara's mark is nearly black, prominent and stark against the pale alabaster of his skin. He touches it softly, feeling heat flare up, and marvel's at the contrast it brings. A boy of the Fire Nation, a people kissed by the flames of Agni, and yet he bears skin that appears to be a beam of moonlight. And then Katara, a girl whose powers were blessed upon her by Tui herself, yet it's her skin that bears the mark of the sun god. Zuko wonders if it is fate that has brought them together, fire and ice, a girl with skin that bears the touch of sunlight, and a boy wreathed in moonshadow.

(He wonders what the mark would look like upon Katara's sun-kissed skin, how different it would look like compared to his own. Light and dark, but bound by the same scarlet that paints their skin. Different, and yet somehow so right; no matter the color of their skin, what matters is the color that binds their souls as one.)

Katara is the girl behind the soulmark, that much is clear. Her finger, brushing against his skin before she was spirited away. It's undeniable, from the heat that flared in his body at her touch, the blooming flower of blood red that appeared from her hand. Katara, the insignificant girl from the Water Tribe, a waterbender with ice and snow in her blood, is his soulmate.

He lays back, holds his hand to his heart, and stares out the porthole, transfixed on the single star he can see through the glass. It flickers, sparkling in the black blanket of the sky, and his soulspot tingles.

 _Katara_ , he thinks. _Katara_.

(Zuko is seventeen years old when he meets his soulmate. She’s an insignificant girl, a waterbender of the Southern Water tribe. A girl of little consequence, with a face too chubby and a spirit too fiery compared to the beauties of the Fire Nation. But Zuko has always been the black sheep of the royal family, in bending, in honor, and in love. The Fire Nation holds beauties like Panda Lilies in high esteem, but Katara is a Fire Lily, and true to form, it is the latter that holds Zuko’s heart. Red for blood, red for war, and now, maybe, red for Katara.)


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's his destiny to find the Avatar, burned into his body by the will of his father. But he remembers Katara's crystal clear gaze, so different from the last time he'd seen her. There was a look in her eyes that hadn't been there the last time. A look of trust, and hope, and a little bit of longing.
> 
> The seed of doubt grows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! thank you for all your patience waiting for this second chapter- grad school is difficult and rough and sometimes I absolutely hate my life, but I love each and every one of you with all my heart. I'm working through responding to everyone's comments on this fic, as well as all my others, so i apologize for the delay in just about everything. Thank you guys so much for giving me such love- this one's for you.
> 
> as always, much love to @allthewaydown for her dedication and love as an amazing beautiful loving friend. Your the best, my love.

_"I dreamt of her_

_in colors brighter_

_than our real"_

_Atticus_ | _Untitled_

~0~

There’s something about the ice and snow that calms Zuko. Maybe it's the quiet that the cold brings, the complete stillness of the frozen seas and the heavy tranquility that rests on his shoulders in the silence of the snows. Or maybe it’s because he can see the girl within his soulspot reflected in the icebergs and the glaciers, the blue shine of her eyes in the harsh waves that brush against his thighs. That might be it, he thinks, as he swims through the seals caverns to break into the North. The current caressing his cheeks is like the soft touch of Katara’s hand against his skin, cold and refreshing compared to the heat of the Fire Nation, and almost biting in it’s poignance and pain. 

He breaks free into the Water Tribe, gasping for air, and collapses in the tunnel. It takes a few minutes for his breath to clear and his inner fire to burn through his body, restoring his body heat, and when he opens his eyes, the might of the water people greets him. Shimmering pillars of snow and ice as far as the eye can see, and he can almost picture Katara staring back at him. She is here, all around him, permeating the air with her presence. He can see her in the shining columns of ice holding temples high, in the water lapping at the walkways, in the fur of rugs he sees through windows. This is a world where Katara lives, a world of all she is.

He shakes his head, forces himself to his feet. He has a mission, and that is to find the Avatar. If he can get the boy, maybe he can convince his father he can come home. Maybe he can figure out how to let the boy live, and maybe he can convince his father that he can be with his soulmate. A world of possibilities, a world of want- Zuko just needs to find the Avatar, and maybe this can all end.

He drops to the ground. The Northern Water tribe is quiet; no doubt the women and children are hiding in the main temple or in an underground bunker, and the warriors and benders will be on the outskirts of the city, ready to protect their home from Zhao. He makes his way through the city fairly quickly, a roadmap laid out in his head of where he needs to go. _There’s an ancient spring in the heart of the city,_ his uncle had whispered to him. _A spirit oasis kept secret. It’s there where you’ll find the Avatar._

He takes shadowy paths on the way to the source, slipping past panicking villagers still making their way to safety, waterbenders stockpiling canteens of water, forming spears of ice, and warriors rushing for the front lines. It’s almost too easy for Zuko to slink through the snow, but he’s a boy fueled by determination, and he makes his way into the palace, down the secret hallway that marks the entrance to the oasis.

(Whether that determination is fueled by his need to find the Avatar or a girl wreathed in ice and snow, he’s not quite sure. But Katara is everywhere around him, in the ice and snow of the north, in his veins and the iron in his blood. His quest may be for the Avatar, but it is the waterbender of the north that directs his heart on his journey, the girl behind the soulspot, who lights the way, wherever it may wander.)

He finds his waterbender hunched over the Avatar, and the sight of her hits him in the chest like a kick to the gut, his soulspot flaring up at her presence. The Avatar’s tattoos are shining, and even from this distance, he can see the silver soulspots on his arm reflecting the glow.

Katara stiffens, as if sensing his presence, and her hand flies up, clamping down on her shoulder. She whirls, a beautiful storm of dew and ice, and the moment he meets her crystal blue gaze feels like the lull before the storm. Then she frowns, and a wave of water rises around her, sharp and clear and beautiful. 

"Zuko!" Katara shouts. He watches the wave freeze into a towering sheet of glistening ice, a reflection of Katara's blue eyes staring him down. 

"Katara," he shouts, and the flames flicker to his fingertips. "You know why I'm here."

"You can't have him," she cries out, and a part of Zuko's soul cries out, _it's you_ , but before he can even consider whispering those to her, she attacks. The water sweeps over him in a crash of cold and hot, swirling him around, and he cries out before his world goes dark.

He dreams of a different life, a different world, in which he isn't a disgraced prince of the Fire Nation. A world where there is peace and his father loves him, where Azula is happy and young and carefree, where Lu-Ten lives and Uncle has his wife and his mother is there with him. He dreams of a world where a girl with blue blue eyes wreathed him in a gentle wave of crystal clear water, where she sings him a lullaby of mountain dew, where his soulspot is a beautiful, shining red star on his chest.

Loving Katara, he thinks, would be easy. Maybe that's the point of the soulmate, finding that one person who will love you no matter what, piece together every aspect of your soul with love and happiness. It makes sense to love Katara, he realizes. Even from the little he knows of her, he knows without a doubt that he could. Because it's different than what his father and mother have, different than his sister and Mai. Because there's something, some higher power, that ties their souls together, and even then, he thinks he could love her without the soulspot to guide his way.

(There's something very peaceful about Katara of the South Pole. Even in all her rage and fire, she's like the eye of the storm, a soothing serenity amidst the chaos. He somehow finds sense in the world, in himself, when he's around her, that within all the hatred and violence that raised him, she's the one who burns through his blood, waiting to guide him home.)

When he wakes, Katara is stooped over Aang, and she's brushing his cheek in a way that makes his soulspot flare up in jealousy. _Please,_ his heart sings. _Please don't take her from me too._

He thinks about his father, welcoming him back home. He thinks about his sister, no longer flaunting her talent in his face, and thinks about honor and respect and love, all things he wants and needs. He can have it, as long as he brings the Avatar to his father. He can have it, and then, maybe, he can have Katara.

And so he melts the wave that encases him, drops to the ground in a silent whisper of fury and hope and desperation. Katara must hear him, because she whirls, but the wave of fire he sends her way is enough to throw her back. He's mindful not to hurt her, just get her _out of the way_ , because no matter what, nothing in this world could ever make him harm Katara. "You rise with the moon," he whispers, catching her limp body and lowering her to the ground. _I rise with the sun._

(Overhead, the sun appears as a little golden dot on the horizon, a testament to the strength Katara now possesses. Strong enough to knock him out, until the rising sun wakes him up again.)

He rests her against a tree, making sure she's comfortable, and cups her cheek. "I'm sorry, Katara," he whispers, brushing his fingers across her skin. "But I have to do this. Please don't hate me."

He leans in, brushing his lips across her temple. _I'm sorry,_ is what he thinks, and when he pulls away, she murmurs in her sleep, neck lolling, and he thinks he can make out the shape of a soulspot under her tunic. Before he can reach out, he hears the war cry of Fire Nation drums, and he jerks, pulling away from the girl he's meant to love. Some little part of his soul breaks, the hole in his heart breaking open even more, as he looks at her, but he shoves it down, and reaches for the Avatar's body.

He can fix this, he knows he can fix this. He can get his father's love and respect, and earn Katara's love, as long as he delivers the promise. For a boy whose entire life has been plagued by heartbreak and loneliness, the pull of a father's love is too tempting a thought to resist.

He makes it halfway back to the Fire Nation ships when the Avatar wakes. He's blasted into the wintery storm, and the Avatar jumps him, rage and wind biting at his fingertips. It tears at Zuko, ripping through his hair and clothes, tearing at the collar of his tunic, and he rolls away, out of the wind and the anger, and comes up standing. The Avatar looks at him, sees the bared skin of his throat and chest, and spies the thumbprint of Katara's soul on his skin. 

"You have a soulmate," the Avatar says. He drops his hands, eyes still wary, and Zuko frowns, flames still waiting at his fingertips for his call. "Is that why you're doing this?" It's the same thing Katara asked him, many months ago, only this time, the soulspot is hers, not his Uncle's. "Yes," Zuko grits out, and he crouches down. "It is."

It's for his future, he thinks. No one can love a dishonorable man, not even Katara. Without his honor, without the respect and love he needs from his father, how can he expect to love her as the worthless soul he is? He needs the Avatar to redeem himself, and make that future with the girl meant for him possible. Otherwise, his soulspot means nothing.

(Red will mean nothing. It will stand for rage and hatred and anger and disgust. Maybe Katara's mark will fade on his skin, disappear entirely, and the only soulspot he'll have of true love is the scarlet mark branded on his face.)

The Avatar dodges the fire blast he sends his way, summoning a gust of wind that propels him back. Zuko chases, because he _can't_ let his ticket home, his ticket to Katara, get away, and throws himself forward, cutting off the Avatar's path. It continues like this, this chase, and the cold bites at Zuko's fingertips, turning his skin a pale blue that matches his soulmate's eyes.

He hears the bison before he sees it, feels _her_ presence. He looks up, and the bison lands in a wave of righteous fury. Katara, atop, wreathed in a halo of silver fur, and his soulspot throbs.

"Katara-" he says, but she jumps to her feet, hands moving faster than he can blink. Suddenly, there's snow all around him, encasing him in a cocoon of frozen emotion, and the last thing he sees before his sight grows dark is Katara's angered face, but her eyes are as soft as ever, and she whispers his name.

When he wakes, he's lying tied to the bison's saddle, and he's back in the spirit oasis. But there's something wrong, his soulspot is throbbing with burning hot pain, and the sky is black.

There's an anguished scream, and he raises his head, eyes foggy, chest pounding, and he makes out the sight of Zhao holding a damp sack, of the Avatar and his friends locked in a stalemate, and Katara, on her knees, head dropped and eyes dropped with fatigue. The sky above is black and empty, and with a start, Zuko knows.

Zhao has killed the moon. His soulmate is weak, the essence of her power _gone_ , and Zuko feels her pain through the bond.

He hears the roar, the sharp snap of fire before he sees it, and his Uncle dives out of the shadows, rage at his feet, and Zhao dives, dropping the bag and sprinting for his life. 

He burns the ropes binding him without hesitation, his inner flame flaring in anger. It was Zhao who separated him from his Uncle, Zhao who commissioned the pirates to attack his ship and kill him. Zhao who would threaten to take Zuko’s entire future away, wrangle the Avatar out of his hands and kill the moon, Zhao who would-

His eyes land on Katara, prone on the ground. Sokka and the Avatar are diving for the moon spirit and the remaining firebenders while his Uncle holds them at bay. Katara, abandoned for the slightest moment, vulnerable and looking _so, so_ small. Zhao is disappearing quickly past the gates, but Zuko turns, heads for the girl who holds his heart, and drops down next to her.

“Zuko,” she murmurs, eyes bleary and filled with tears. He grits his teeth, feeling his soulspot flare up as he slides his arms under her shoulders, her legs, and holds her close. In her weakened state, she can’t be in the heat of things- she could get easily trampled in the chaos, and Zuko refuses to let her get hurt. “What are you-”

“Shush,” he murmurs, and rests her off to the side, propped up against a tree. She looks up at him, a tear running down her cheek, and he sighs, cupping her face and wiping her tears away. “Just rest.”

He turns to leave, but she catches his wrist, fingers slipping on the tattered sleeve of his tunic. He looks at her, and there’s something in those beautiful eyes of hers, something that tugs on his heart and refuses to let go. He takes her hand, threading their fingers together in a moment of frozen time and space. “Please,” Katara whispers, and he brings her fingers up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her hand, before turning away.

Zhao will pay for this, he thinks as he runs, leaving behind the Avatar and the girl who should be his. The general will pay for trying to kill him, and for hurting her.

He catches up with Zhao as the commander drops over the side of the pavilion. The man is a brilliant bender, but Zuko has been trained by the Dragon of the West, and no other firebender had the training to keep their inner flame strong in the ice of the North. So he dives, twisting in a complicated kata, and an arc of flame arches out from his hands and feet, roaring towards the fleeing commander.

"How are you alive?" Zhao roars, eyes wide with shock as he avoids the blast. Zhao hits the ice, stumbles and falls, and Zuko lands softly, eyes narrowed and fists clenched.

"You tried to have me killed!" Zuko snarls. "You killed the moon spirit!"

Zhao frowns, clambering to his feet, and rips off his cloak. "Why should you care?" He spits, and ducks low, a fireball erupting from his fists. Maybe it's the heat of the moment, or the rage pooling in Zuko's gut, but he dives into the firestorm with a snarl, diffusing the flames, and hits Zhao with a roll. He gets a fistful of Zuko's tunic and _tears,_ fabric ripping away, and his eyes widen in surprise at the thumbprint on Zuko's chest.

"I should have known," Zhao spits, and Zuko rolls away, waving an arch of flame to snarl at Zhao's feet, knocking him backwards. "You're the waterbender's soulmate aren't you?"

"Her name is Katara!" Zuko roars, and slams Zhao back with a wave of flame. The commander startles, hitting the wall behind him with a cry of pain, but the look he sends Zuko's way is filled with hatred and disgust.

“She’s a waterbending whore!” Zhao snarls. “Your father was right about you. No prince of the Fire Nation would be caught dead bearing soulspots of another nation.” His eyes narrow, and his lips curl into a horrifying smirk. “You deserve to die.”

Zuko lunges, teeth bared, ready to rip Zhao’s throat out. In that moment, there’s a startling shock of light, and Zuko looks up, eyes wide. The moon greets him, beautiful and cold, and he hears Zhao’s shocked intake of breath. “No!” the commander cries, and as Zuko turns, a wave of cold blue water rises, engulfing the man in its shining grip. “Save me!” Zhao screams, but Zuko watches on, eyes cold, unrelenting.

“Goodbye, Zhao,” he murmurs, and the water engulfs him.

He makes it out of the city, even as his body screams at him to go back, make sure Katara is okay. He doesn’t know what happened to make the moon appear back in the sky, but whatever it was caused the Fire Nation navy to break up and shatter, the last remaining boats fleeing into the horizon.

His Uncle finds him, collapsed by an abandoned skiff. "Nephew!" He shouts, and runs a hand over Zuko's soulspot, the dahlia flaring to life at his touch. Zuko blinks, coming back to, and lets Uncle pull him into the skiff. Iroh doesn't say a word more, not until the Northern Water Tribe had vanished beyond the horizon.

"What happened?" Iroh asks, and Zuko rolls.

"I couldn't let Zhao get away with that," he says. "He hurt Katara."

Iroh sighs, leaving the mooring to sit next to Zuko, placing a warm hand on his shoulder. "Watching your soulmate in pain isn't an easy thing to witness, but running after Zhao was reckless, nephew. The Avatar merged with the ocean spirit and diffused the Fire Nation ships. You're lucky you didn't get caught up in the wave."

Zuko thinks of the shining wave that took the Commander, the way it aimed for him and not Zuko. He doesn't know why the ocean spirit spared his life, but he thinks about Katara's blue blue eyes, and he can't help but wonder, if maybe, it was because of her.

His Uncle shifts, and there's a strange gleam in his burnished eyes. "I have to admit though, Prince Zuko, I'm surprised. I'm surprised that you are not at this moment trying to capture the Avatar." 

He wonders that too. It would have been easy for him to turn around, capture the Avatar in the confused state of the water tribe. But he remembers the look in Katara gaze, the tears in her eyes, and her whispered plea, the way her gaze had lingered on him as he turned to confront Zhao. There's a little seed of doubt blooming in his chest now, put there because of her. 

It's his destiny to find the Avatar, burned into his body by the will of his father. But he remembers Katara's crystal clear gaze, so different from the last time he'd seen her. There was a look in her eyes that hadn't been there the last time. A look of trust, and hope, and a little bit of longing.

His soulspot throbs in heat, and he raises a hand, touching it over his shirt, and closes his eyes. "I'm tired," is what he says to his uncle, and Iroh gives him a cloak, tells him to get some rest. And so he does, and he thinks of the Avatar, and the girl he's meant to love, and he thinks about his missive to find the boy.

The seed of doubt grows.

~0~

The next place they stop is an Earth Kingdom spa, and he treats his Uncle to a nice massage while they plot out their route. "We have to be careful," Uncle is saying. "Word will spread of Zhao's defeat, and my part to play in the failed invasion. Your father won't be pleased."

"He never is," Zuko snorts back, and grunts in pain as the therapist attacks a particularly rough patch on his back. The man's rough hands are hard and calloused, and he wonders, vaguely, as if in a dream, what Katara's hands would feel like. Like a diamond, smooth and sharp, or more like a snowflake, gentle and fleeting?

He wanders out to the stream after the massage, staring out over the water. He catches sight of his reflection and freezes, his father's love burned into his face. _Today's the day_ , he realizes. Three years since his marking, three years since he learned what a father's love looked like. Iron on skin.

Uncle finds him a short while later. "What is wrong, Prince Zuko?" He asks, and Zuko sighs.

"Three years ago today I was banished," he says, and Uncle _harrumphs_ in understanding. "I lost it all, and I don't know how to get it back."

His uncle frowns. "Did you lose it all?" He asks, kindly, and Zuko jerks, looking at him in confusion. "Or did you perhaps, maybe find something better?"

He startles, hand flying to his dahlia, which warms at his touch. His uncle smiles, eyes warm, and reaches out, cups a hand on Zuko's own. "You got me, nephew, but you always have. I'm talking about something else, something even more precious." His eyes drop to Zuko's chest, where the sliver of red peeks out among the parted folds of his tunic. "Something far more precious than a crown."

Zuko sucks in a breath. Katara, he decides, is like the tides, always drifting on the edges of his consciousness, but returning with every heartbeat. The imprint of her touch lingers in his veins, pulling and receding, like the memory of her lives in each and every breath. Coming and going, but always present, always there. Like water itself, a constant presence surrounding him wherever he goes.

"I know, Uncle," he murmurs, and touches at his soulspot. Then his heart hardens, and he clenches a fist in his robes, wrinkles bleeding out like rivers across the silk. "But I can't have her, not until I prove to my father that I'm not weak. That my soulspots don't define who I am."

"And what do they define?" Uncle shoots back.

"That I'm weak," Zuko groans out. "That I'm too soft, too innocent. Father believes that my soulspots drag me down, but if I capture the Avatar, I can prove to him that they don't! And then I can have my life back, and then I can have her. Don't you see, Uncle?" He turns a wild gaze on Iroh, who looks back, quiet, unflinching, a quiet sadness lingering in his gaze. "If I want Katara, then I need to get the Avatar to restore my honor. Then maybe, Father won't think I'm worthless, and I can prove to him that having a soulmate doesn't make me weak."

His uncle heaves a belabored sigh. "Oh, Zuko," he murmurs. Then, quietly, in a tone Zuko almost can't quite make out, "I hope someday you realize how much you're worth."

He sags, and looks out beyond the water, past the trees, to the clear blue sky above. He thinks, offhand, that the clear blue afternoon sky perfectly matches Katara's gaze.

Their days are peaceful, but numbered. Zuko has spent his entire life on edge, always looking over his shoulder, whether it’s Azula’s underhanded firebending or Father’s spiteful words, so he’s used to the tension that sits in the air as he waits for the worst. The spa is a tranquil oasis in the heart of the land, a peace separated by the war of the outside world, but somehow, everything Zuko touches ends up burnt. So he watches and he waits, and he prepares.

When Azula arrives, Zuko can't help the shiver of fear that runs up his spine. It's innate, beaten into his bones the same way his shame was burned into his face. His sister is changed, but then again, it's been several years since he last saw her. She's a girl of barely fourteen, but the look in her eyes is harsh and cruel.

(If this is what it looks like to be without a soulmate, then Zuko wouldn't wish this fate on anyone. Because his sister, as beautiful and as powerful, is the embodiment of nothingness, a life filled with nothing more than anger and violence and cruelty. Zuko may be weaker than his sister, but it is Katara's strength, what little he knows of her, that keeps him going.)

"Father wants you to come home," are the magic words. He freezes, heart growing cold at his sister's cruel cruel worlds, because _Azula always lies,_ and his father hates him. Hates him enough to brand his mark on his son's face, hates him enough to banish him from home for bearing marks of another on his skin.

She leaves, promising a return the next day. He frown, heart pounding, teeth clenched in fury, because none of it makes sense. "What are you doing?" Uncle asks him, and he rounds on him with fury burning in his eyes.

"I'm going down there tomorrow, Uncle," he spits. "And I'm giving my sister a piece of my mind. And then you and I are getting out of here."

His uncle tries to reason with him, but there is cold rage settling in his blood now. Deep down, there’s a part of him that whispers, _you’re more like him than you realize,_ but he pushes it away as he settles to sleep, rolling over on his tatami mat. It’s a full moon tonight, and he looks up at the sky. The full moon is silver and bright, and there’s a flashback of Katara’s necklace at his wrist, shining with that same ethereal glow. 

What would Katara think? He wonders. Would she even understand his need to prove himself, to prove that love outstands blood, that somehow, his honor is stained with the blue of her eyes and the scarlet of a father’s blood, and only the blood, sweat and tears of the son, the sinner, the lover, can earn it back?

(Katara dances in his dreams that night, walks upon the air and dewdrops in the sky. There’s heaven in her eyes, he thinks, her breath like sweet starlight, her hair glimmering with pearldrops of moonlight. She presses kisses of stardust across his soul, and a blossoming star blooms across his chest, gleaming with the reds of his dreams. With her hands, she weaves a curtain of flowers and stars over his heart, wraps him up in a warm embrace, and he thinks, this is what magic looks like, _this_ is what love looks like.)

When he wakes the next day, the sky is beautiful and bright blue, and Zuko takes this as a sign, that maybe, somehow, the world will be on his side for once. That maybe, giving him a soulmate- two soulmates- was the right choice. There’s a soft breeze at his back, bringing with it the fresh scent of rain- of _Katara-_ and he hopes that its the spirits’ way of telling him that today is the day he earns everything back.

Azula always lies.

She lies, and she takes, and in the moment the lightning erupts from her fingertips, he ponders death. He thinks about his life, and can’t help but think, that perhaps loving Katara- or at least, finding Katara- was the greatest gift life could ever give him.

(In a word full of gray, Katara is the splash of color, a vibrant, kaleidoscopic breath in a monochrome life. If Zuko’s heart were a canvas, he thinks, the colors she’d paint on his soul would be a spectrum of life, and at the heart of it all, he imagines a scarlet star, engraved on skin.)

Uncle steps in, grabbing Zuko’s wrist and shoving him to the side. He drops, mouth open in a silent howl, his dahlia flaring up in anguish, but Uncle jumps past Azula’s guard, taking her hand and redirecting the lightning away from the ship. “Run!” his uncle commands, and dives for Zuko. It’s a blur, but he distinctly remembers his sister’s eyes flaring in rage, but he turns his head, and lets Uncle lead them back to safety.

“I should have known,” he whispers, once they’ve put good distance between themselves and his sister’s spite. He stares down at his reflection in the stream, watching the unshed tears pooling in his eyes, and furiously dashes them away. _Weak,_ he can picture his father whisper, and he touches the scar.

(Red for blood, red for anger, red for a father’s hatred, a sister’s spite. How long must he wear this cloak of shame for bearing the mark of people he loves?)

"Your sister is a master of deceit," uncle says kindly. "Do not slander yourself for making that error. You're not wrong for hoping."

No, but he was wrong to think his father would ever care. It's been dawning on him for a while now, this sad realization that maybe his father never truly loved him, never wanted him at all. That maybe, banishing him was the best thing to ever happen to him, if it meant being free from the man who burned him. For what? For bearing the mark of another, and for speaking out of turn.

He pulls out the knife he carries, looks at his uncle, who sighs in defeat. Then, without a word, he reaches for his ponytail, grasps it firmly by the base, and brings the knife down. He keeps his eyes downcast, boring into his reflection, and makes a promise. _Never again_ , he thinks, and his soulspot flares.

The hair falls.

~0~

They meet a girl named Song on their travels through the Earth Kingdom. She treats Uncle after he poisons himself for a cup of tea, and later, at night, Zuko sits on the porch and watches the stars. _Katara is out there somewhere,_ he thinks, and grits his teeth _. And so is the Avatar._

He's at a crossroads, he realizes. One part of him yearns to chase after the Avatar boy, to bring him back home and earn his father's love. That maybe the burn on his face will come to represent something other than shame and disappointment. But there's another part within him, a part that's been growing day by day, that yearns for a girl of ice and snow. 

(There's a path marked out in gray, a path marked out in a river of color. He thinks about which one he needs to take, wonders which one is right for him. A path marked in blood, or a path marked in light?)

Song joins him on the porch, shifting softly to crouch next to him. She studies him, eyes dark and mysterious, and reaches out. Before she can touch his face, his cheek, he brushes her away, leaning back with wide eye. "The Fire Nation hurt you," she murmurs. Then she bends down, rolls up her pant leg, and shows Zuko a silver soulspot in the shape of falling leaves, and the ghastly burn almost covering it completely.

"They hurt me too," she whispers softly, and Zuko gasps, mouth dropping open in a silent wail of shock. "His name was Taro, and Fire Nation soldiers killed him right in front of me, burned my soulspot before leaving me to die. I understand your pain."

He turns his head away, and she sighs, leaning her shoulder into his. "Do you have a soulmate?" She asks, and Zuko clenches a hand to his chest. She doesn't miss this gesture, and pulls away, eyes soft, understanding, and glistening with sadness. "You need to find her, you know. You never know when it'll be your last."

 _I know,_ he thinks, and looks up at the sky, looks north, towards a world of frozen seas. _I know._

And when he leaves their home that night with his Uncle in tow, he whispers an apology to the girl with the burned soulspot, and takes the ostrich horse.

(Zuko's on a twisted path of gray and red, and at the end of it, he hopes there's a girl of the ice and seas to welcome him home.)

They wander, and he loses uncle for a brief period of time in their travels, separated by weather and traffic and things he cannot control. He wanders, lost, aimlessly, until he ventures into a ramshackle Earth Kingdom village, and there he meets a boy named Lee, who had no soulspots at all.

Lee is a bright child, happy and vibrant even without the burden of a soulmate. He tells Zuko of his brother, who is on the front lines of the war- a war _his_ family started- and offers to bring Zuko home. As he follows the excited boy, Zuko's eyes can't help but wander over his unblemished skin, and a little part of him is almost _jealous._ No fated future, no guilty conscience, no soulmate to wonder about. He's carefree and spirited, and he can't help but wonder if this is what Azula would be like if their father didn't get to her first.

As the day goes on, he finds himself watching the boy. Lee is happy and exuberant, and he gushes over his brother in a way that makes Zuko think of Lu-Ten. _Would it have been like this?_ He wonders as the boy hangs off his every word, clings to him with bright, intelligent eyes brimming with curiosity. He feels a pang of affection for this child, this boy who could have been _him,_ had he grown up with a loving father and a happy mother. A life he could have had, he thinks, and as he stares down at Lee, he feels a surge of protectiveness rise up within him.

Zuko lost his childhood. But Lee still has his, and something innate within Zuko clicks. Lee deserves his childhood, so no more Zuko's exist in the world, so no more children lose their happiness to the war they way he has. No scars from unloving parents, no more lost brothers and cousins to wars draped in red. He can protect Lee, in the way he wasn't.

He aids them with their roof, meets Sela and Gensu. They feed him and wash his clothes, and later that night, when Zuko wanders out to the porch, he finds Sela sitting there already, wiping her eyes and touching a soulspot on her wrist, a silver sparrowkeet painted across her skin.

He doesn't pry, but she tells him anyway. The sparrowkeet is her son's soulspot, _Sensu,_ her platonic soulmate, and he was killed in the war. 

"I'm sorry _,_ " he tells her. She sighs, and gestures to his arm, where his dahlia stands out. 

"Romantic?" She asks, and he shakes his head. "Oh, platonic? You have a romantic soulmate too, then, right?"

He sighs, touches a hand to his chest. "Yes," he says, after a moment of hesitation. "But she's far away from me right now."

Sela's eyes soften, and she slides closer, rolling up her sleeve to show Zuko the sprig of clove that decorates her bicep. It's green- _harmony,_ he notes- and he distinctly remembers the green sun that painted Gensu's hand. "Would you like to hear the story of how Gensu and I married?" She asks, and wordlessly, he nods.

"He and I met when we were very young," Sela begins. "He was actually bullying me when we bonded. When I found out, I actually ran away from home, started a new life because there was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life with someone who hated me."

He's quiet. "What happened?" He asks, gesturing to her mark, then back to the house. She grins, laughing, and leans against the wall, staring up at the sky.

"He chased me," she confesses, and something skips inside Zuko's chest, like his heart is fluttering, ready to burst through his skin and search the corners of the world for a girl of blue but splashed in the colors of a sunset. "Looked for me for years, even though his family tried to make him come home. I guess other people don't understand, that the pull of a soulmate is so strong, it overcomes anything else. Gensu found me, and the rest is history," her eyes soften. "When Sensu was born, I bonded with him instantly. And it hurt like a knife when he was taken from me, but I carry him in my heart, even after he's gone." She looks at Zuko, and there's a knowing glint in her eyes that he can't quite place. "That's the thing about soulmates, stranger. You can't get rid of them, even if the entire world wishes it so."

She leaves him with his thoughts, and he watches the sky, notes how the stars seem to sparkle, how the moon glimmers down in her cold radiance. The night is quiet, his breath fogging out, and the air is crisp and clean. There is a certain beauty he finds in the quiet, a sudden peace he could never quite grasp within the halls of the Fire Palace, and he wonders about a simple life, where he is nothing more than a boy with a name, and in love with a girl painted red across his heart.

The next day, he's sharpening his broadswords when Sela finds him. Her eyes are wide and terrified, brown flecked with hints of panic, and Gensu is right behind her. He's up in a flash, swords dancing in the sunlight, and she tells him Lee's been kidnapped. He thinks of the poor boy, a boy he sees so much of himself in, and flies down the road leading into the village.

(In a sense, Lee is the embodiment of all the things Zuko wishes he could be: brave, rambunctious, unfiltered. There's the boy Zuko himself lost, the child within him buried under layer and layers of self hatred painted in varying hues of his father's disgust. Failure, tinged in shades of scarlet. Zuko knows his childhood is washed away in a sea of vermillion anger, but Lee is a blank canvas, still a child. He's got a whole life ahead of him, and Zuko cannot, for some unknown reason, let the boy follow in his footsteps.)

He finds Lee tied to a post in the middle of the village, surrounded by the thugs who first cornered him. "Let the kid go," he snarls, unsheathing his swords. The ringleader, _Gow_ , he remembers, sneers, and in his dark eyes there's a malignant glee that stirs the dark swirls of fear that live deep within his gut. Fear that is elicited by memories of a father and fire, of a sister and malice. Memories of blue and red, flames and disgust, and now this man, who threatens the boy who reminds Zuko so much of what he could have been.

"Who do you think you are?" Gow sneers. He takes a step forward, vicious and angrily, and Zuko thinks of hot flames, a father's twisted sneer, and fights back the terror that grips at his feet and threatens to drag him down. "Telling us what to do?"

Zuko shakes his head, grits his teeth and shoves down his fear. He thinks of Katara, and the pure gentleness that lingers in her ocean gaze. Heat pools out over his chest, his soulspot twitches, and he takes a deep breath, tightening his grip on his dao. "It doesn't matter who I am, but I know who you are. You're not soldiers." He frowns, and musters the courage surging from the reminiscence of Katara's memory. "You're bullies. Freeloaders, abusing your power, nothing but sick cowards messing with a family who's already lost one son to the war."

(It's Uncle and Lu-Ten all over again. A cruel father keeping a son from a loving cousin, a brother losing a beloved son. Only this time, it's Zuko and Lee, and Zuko will _not_ let time repeat itself. Lu-Ten had a soulmate who lost a life partner; Lee has no soulmate, but he had the rest of his life left to live. Ozai and the Fire Nation already burned one child of his childhood, Zuko will not let another lose his.)

Gow and his men dive, but Zuko has been trained from birth to fight, has learned how to avoid the dirty cheap shots Azula fired at him. But Zuko can only do so much; he’s one boy against a small army, and pretty soon he’s scuffed and bruised, chest heaving and sweat pooling in his hairline. There’s a slash on his cheek; he can feel the blood dripping down his skin, and Gow holds the bloody weapon. 

“You’re earthbenders,” he snarls, and dodges another boulder thrown his way. Gow smirks, hefting a rock in one hand and his knife in the other, and towers over Zuko much like Ozai did all those years ago. _Suffering shall be your teacher_ , he remembers, and his soulscar flares, eye twitching as searing pain wracks his skull. Another year, another failure. Maybe that’s all Zuko is- failure and scorn and disappointment all wrapped up in hues of scarlet and pink, a love undeserved.

“Did you think you were special?” Gow snarls. He raises his hand, eyes burning- flashing that same brilliant, cold, icy gold that reflects his father- and Zuko sees the boulder move. He grits his teeth, eyes slitting shut, and just barely makes out Lee screaming _get up_ , before the earthbender moves.

(Katara ghosts over him, as if she is nothing more than a breath of wind. Intangible, but soft, like a whisper of ocean water soothing over his torn body in a sweet smelling wave. It happens like this often, her creeping into his thoughts like the tides, and there's a gentle hand carding through his hair, a brush of lips against his ravaged mind, and a sweet voice whispering his name.)

He opens his eyes and yells, pent up rage and anger and frustration fueling him, and an arch of fire explodes from his dao. He's got a split second to catch a glimpse of Lee's terrified gaze, hear the startled screams of Gow's men, before his flames knock his adversaries back, the intense heat bringing tears to his eyes.

Azula always called him weak, he remembers taking a step forward. But the one thing he inherited from their father, the one thing that didn't make him a complete disappointment, Azula noted, was his rage. _You're angry Zu-Zu,_ she used to say, and he remembers his sister's words in this moment, feels flames flickering to life, emanating from his body. The heat feels good against his skin, similar to the warmth he felt from Katara's touch, and he sears her image into his brain as he takes another step towards the groveling earthbenders.

"Who are you?" Gow breathes, and looks up in fear, body trembling. Zuko cannot help but wonder if that's what he looked like at the moment his father bestowed love onto his face.

"My name is Zuko," he snarls, and points a dao at Gow, flames pooling off of him. "Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation and heir to the throne," he tries to be confident in his words, confident in himself, and it seems to work. Gow shrinks back, eyes wide with fear, and Zuko sheathes his swords.

"Liar!" Someone shouts, and his head whips around. An old man points his finger at Zuko. "You're nothing but a dishonored royal. Your own _father_ was so disgusted he burned and banished his only son! Shame!"

It hits him like a kick in the gut. _Shame,_ he thinks, and his soulspot twinges at the pain. Shame for protecting soldiers, shame for having soulmates. Shame for being weak, for being less than perfect.

His hesitation allows Gow and his companions to flee, and Zuko douses the flames. It's quiet, and the old man flees, leaving him alone with Lee. He turns, shoving down the thoughts running rampant in his mind, and unties Lee from the post.

The boy scrambles from him, eyes haunted and terrified. "Stay away from me!" He shouts, and points a finger in Zuko's direction. "Monster!"

He doesn't flinch, doesn't shout, and he doesn't cry. He sighs, standing straight up, and looks at the boy who has a future, a boy who won't have to worry about shame and dishonor and a parent's disgust, and says, "I'm sorry." Then he turns and walks away, but for the first time, there's a lightness in his heart that wasn't there before.

 _Shame,_ he thinks, collecting his ostrich horse, and turns to look back to the village. He sees Lee, the child's scrambling back disappearing into the alleyways, the cowering townsfolk. _Father would call this shame_. 

But saving the life of a boy from experiencing the same pain he did? For the first time, Zuko can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, that was the most honorable thing he's ever done in his life.

(Would Katara be proud? He certainly hopes so.)

As he leaves, he catches sight of villagers, poor people with nothing but dust to their names and sadness in their eyes. He thinks of Gensu and Sela, loving a boy who will never return home, and of Lee, mourning a brother he will never have again. All tragedies in their own right, all tragedies caused by the Fire Nation.

This is what his father and sister fight for. This is what his father and sister live for- and it makes Zuko sick. If this is his family's legacy, if this is what he is to inherit should he return home, then maybe he's better off being the scorned son, the unwanted child. Better a dishonorable pacifist than a royal coward.

 _No one can take your honor away from you_ , he remembers. Katara, as clear as day, bright as the morning sky. And as he rides away, he looks up, and finds that the sky that greets him is the perfect shade of his soulmate's eyes.

~0~

He finds Katara's trail easily, or rather, he finds Azula's trail tracking the Avatar easily. He finds the tracks, touches the soil and feels the displacement in the earth, tastes the iron and rust in the air. Fire Nation, he notes. The finest quality iron his country can produce too. It's his sister, alright, and he finds the tufts of hair on the ground just as easily. There's the faint scent of ocean breeze clinging to the white fur, and he grips tufts of it in his hands. 

The bison, he knows. And where the bison is, so is the girl he's meant to love. Perhaps he can right the wrongs his family wrought, help the Avatar stop his sister. He'll be a banished, weak, dishonorable prince to his family, but if that means Katara will welcome him with open arms, he'll damn his soul to hell in his father's eyes if it means having her love.

(He understands the price of bearing a soulspot now, understands it in the ways his father can't. That there's no weakness in having someone you're meant to love, and maybe, the only weakness is denying it in the first place. His father's soulspot, white for a hollow love. Zuko is many things, but he is _not_ his father, and he knows red, red for true love, is stronger than a hollow one.)

He camps that night by the stream, lulls himself to sleep on the melody of the water, the way it rushes over the rocks reminiscent of Katara's hair pooling over his chest. The moon isn't full tonight, but he feels the pull of it tugging on the edges of his soulspot. It's funny, he thinks, that the moon, the spirit of his elemental opposite, would call him, but he thinks that maybe, it's Katara's way of calling him home. To her, wherever she is.

The next morning, he starts on the trail, mind and body rejuvenated. Today's the day, he hopes. Today's the day he finds the Avatar, finds Katara, and just maybe, begin to stitch up the wounds his family left on the world, one heartbreak at a time.

He thinks about Katara on the journey, mind wandering even as he tracks his sister across the country. There's a girl out there, he muses, and touches a hand idly to his tunic, where his soulspot flares in heat. For some reason, spirits unknown, the universe gave this poor, worthless boy of no significance, no talent, no honor, a girl to love. If there is a reason, he thinks, then he can't find it. Whatever it is, he thanks the world for giving him Katara, even if he doesn't deserve her.

(Katara is a girl of water and ice, an insignificant girl to most, but to Zuko, she's become the entire framework of his being. A girl of the seas and a boy of smoke, fire and ice and so so _so_ different, and somehow, in the moment of their collision, sparks fly.)

He spies the blue fire from a distance, and it's like he's thrown back to the palace, surrounded by flames and a little sister's malignant glee. He spurs the ostrich horse forward, as fast as it can go _and yet not fast enough_ , and he can hear the shouts of the Avatar and the gleeful snarls of his sister.

"Come on," he whispers through gritted teeth, dropping the animal's reins and slipping through abandoned streets, empty rows of house standing to attention like soldiers. Defeated, hollow soldiers, so much like Zuko, and he slips down an alley as a cold sweat pools at the base of his spine.

There's a flash of blue up ahead, clear and cold and sends a shiver up his back. Memories of burning hot flames and glinting gold eyes saturate his thoughts, and a spot on his face burns, a hole in his heart tears even further.

Azula is cobalt, dark and rich, but filled with a cold malice he's never witnessed before. Blue for cruelty, for a depraved love, for Azula.

(Katara is the color of the stars, bright, iridescent, shining like the juncture where the sea and the sunset collide. It's different from Azula, a blue that holds warmth and trust and love within the swirls of the ocean, and even though the color of their soulspots is a bright scarlet, Zuko can't help but think that the love they could have would be that perfect shade where the sky meets the sea.)

He sees his sister, his beautiful, tragic, malevolent sister, and she's regal in her cruelty. "Do you really want to fight me?" She taunts at someone past Zuko's peripheral, and all he can think of his Katara standing there, Katara being shot down by Azula's blue flames, Katara smothered under the heat of his sister's hatred and-

-He throws himself forward, diving into his sister's path. She jumps back, eyes narrowed, but doesn't say a word, because she is the perfect perfect princess, and nothing fazes her. Strong where Zuko has been weak, but maybe, he thinks, that she is weak where he is strong. Love and hate, brother and sister. 

(Maybe it's a showdown that was always meant to be.)

"Yes," he snarls, and he has a brief glimpse of the Avatar watching in shock, before he turns back to his sister, slipping into his kata. "I really do."

Azula sighs, cocking her hip like she does when she's bored, and studies him with her sharp eyes. "I was wondering when you'd show up, Zu-Zu," she says, picking at her nails. "You always have a talent for arriving at the most inopportune times. It's a shame, really."

He glares. "Why?" He snarls. "Have you been keeping tabs on me?"

"Yes," she deadpans. "You've made a complete and utter fool of yourself these past few years, Zu-Zu. Father is livid. He can barely stand the thought of you anymore."

"That's not going to work on me, Azula," he grits out. "Father has made it crystal clear how he feels about his worthless son. I don't care anymore. Stay away from the Avatar. He's not yours to have."

Azula's eyes narrow dangerously sharp, like Mai's stilettos. "Or what?" She whispers quietly.

"Back off, Azula," he says, and summons his inner flame, lets it simmer right below the skin of his knuckles. "I mean it." 

Azula grins. "Oh Zu-Zu," she whispers. "My poor brother. What a mistake you are." She doesn't give him a chance to respond; a fireball the color of ice launches itself at his head, and he dives to the side, feels the cold heat of it sting his cheek. The Avatar yelps, summoning a sheet of wind to carry him down the alley, and Azula gives chase, leaving Zuko in a dusty heap on the ground.

 _Come on,_ he thinks, pushing himself up and giving chase. He eyes the small of his sister's back, sending a fire whip towards her feet to cut her off, but she counters, blue flames erupting from her feet and sending his shying back. 

The chase occurs like this: the Avatar flees from roof to roof, Azula a shadow on his tail, sending blast after blast after the airbending child. Zuko is quick to follow, jumping into the roofs, sending his own fireballs at his sister in a vain attempt to divert her attention, but his sister is a prodigy, and sends him off while still in pursuit.

His sister corners the Avatar while he is disoriented from a fall, and he tries desperately to get up, to help the Avatar or stop his sister, whichever comes first. "I always win," he hears his sister say, reaching for the cowering boy, but then, miraculously, a slice of water shoots from behind, knocking Azula away with a shrill cry of _Aang._ It's enough of a distraction, giving the Airbender enough time to summon the wind and carry him to safety, and it's enough to stir clarity within Zuko's brain.

He turns, spots the girl of blue and those impossibly bright eyes of hers. It's a flash, nothing else, but it also catches his sister's attention, who gives chase. Zuko groans, rolling to his feet, and staggers through the building. Outside, he finds a sight he never thought he'd see again, Uncle, leaning on the shoulder of a petite earthbender who curses worse than the sailors on his ship.

"Uncle!" Zuko shouts, and rushes over, taking him from the girl's hands. His dahlia flares in response to his uncle's presence, and he sighs, tears pooling in his eyes as he buries his face into his uncle's foul smelling shoulder. Foul, but so very much _uncle._ "I thought I'd lost you."

"We'll have time to reminisce on this later, Prince Zuko," Uncle says, and firmly turns Zuko to where Katara and the rest of her companions have Azula cornered. It's a sight to behold, his powerful, manipulative sister backed into a corner, and he nods, wordlessly joining the Avatar in keeping his sister in check.

"Backup has arrived," the earthbender girl says, and Zuko meets Katara's hesitant gaze. There's peace to be found within her ocean eyes, and Zuko could spend an _eternity_ drowning in the endless depths of her eyes, but his sister is posing a bigger threat. He looks at Katara, touches his soulspot, and mouths _later,_ to which she smiles, a gentle smile that makes his soulspot warm, and they turn back to his sister, who watches them with her sharp, predatory eyes.

Azula frowns. "Well, look at this. Enemies and traitors all working together. I'm done." She raises her hands, mouth upturned, and Zuko hesitates, because Azula is Azula, and she would never surrender. Not if it means losing their father's respect, and she could never. "I know when I'm beaten. A princess surrenders with honor."

The Avatar and his friends relax, all except Katara, who studies Azula in the same way his sister studied her. Sharp blue eyes, narrowed in concentration, and Zuko doesn't miss the icicles forming at her fists, the way the air condenses around her lips as she breathes.

(Little things, insignificant things to most, but not to Zuko, never to Zuko. A girl of the moon and the ocean, special and dear in every way, as important as life itself.)

Iroh shifts, eyes narrowed, and Zuko looks back to him, then to his sister. _Azula always lies_ , he thinks briefly, and in that moment, she strikes. He sees a bright snap of blue flames darting out, and he has a moment to think _not her,_ before the flames engulf his uncle.

There's a sharp tearing pain that rips through his arm and down his spine. His uncle screams, and it rings in his ears as he watches Iroh fall, clutching at his burnt shoulder. The world seems to fall away in that moment his uncle drops; he can vaguely hear a scuffle and muffled shouts, but he drops to the ground, pulls at Iroh's tattered tunic to bare the burnt and bloody skin marring his uncle's shoulder.

Blood. So much blood. He sees red, red for war, red for blood, red for his father, and it's like he's been transported back in time. Only this time, it's his uncle with him at the Agni Kai, and this time, his father burns two faces, not one.

Blue enters his peripheral. "Zuko," a voice whispers, and a gentle hand touches his shoulder. He twitches at the touch, the girl's hand eliciting a memory of want and need and _something_ , but he looks up, and through the cloud, he sees nothing but the blue of his sister's flames staring back at him.

"Zuko, I can help," she is whispering, and her voice is soft and soothing and should make him feel better. He knows it should, but his uncle is lying before him, in pain and barely breathing, bleeding red for war and anger and rage, and it's all because of blue flames, cruelty and depraved love and-

"Leave," he hears himself snarl, and the girl takes a step back, jaw slack with shock.

"Zuko, I can help!"

"I said leave us!" Zuko screams this time, tears of anger and fear running down his cheeks. He launches a wave of flames out, and the girl jumps, dodging the flames, and a flicker of shame and terror courses through his soulspot.

He turns back to his uncle, cradles him close, and sobs. Vaguely, he can hear the girl leave, hears the groan of the bison as it flies off, but he stays crouched over his uncle, begging and praying for life, and finally, he feels the flicker of his dahlia, and Uncle Iroh opens his eyes.

"Uncle," he murmurs, and Iroh sits up, touching a hand to his chest and pulling the heat from the burn. He groans, but let's Zuko pull him to his feet and get him to the nearest abandoned house. There, he tears up strips of cloth, binding his uncle's wounds, and it isn't until he's fully bandaged does he realize he's still crying.

"Don't cry," Uncle says, and wipes at Zuko's face. "I'm okay, thanks to you. You don't have to cry anymore."

He nods, wiping at his face, but the tears linger. And deep down, he knows, the tears aren't for his uncle. Somewhere along the line, in the moments between his uncle's breaths and a bison's farewell groan, he shed his tears not for his platonic soulmate, but for the girl he let go.

(Zuko is almost eighteen years old when he realizes what heartbreak looks like. Not for a disgruntled father, or a cruel sister. Not for a lost mother or a beloved uncle, but for an insignificant girl of the Southern Water Tribe, whose love is marked in red, scored across Zuko's chest. He wonders, briefly, if this is how a soul dies, and he hopes somewhere out there, there is still a chance. _Red for Katara,_ he thinks. _Red for Katara.)_


End file.
